


The Pitch Perspectives

by not_poignant



Series: Shadows and Light [3]
Category: Guardians of Childhood - William Joyce, Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: AU, Alternative Perspective, BlackIce, D/s, Disturbing Themes, Feels, Gen, General Kozmotis Pitchiner - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, M/M, Nightmares, Recovery, Smut, Stand Alone, Synesthesia, angst at some point because I can't help myself, lots of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-09 06:59:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 29,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not an 'official' part of the series, rather it is a section of unconnected scenes from Pitch's perspective. Includes alternate retellings of scenes from <i>From the Darkness We Rise</i> and <i>Into Shadows We Fall</i>, as well as deleted scenes, AU scenes, and a fair bit of shameless porn.</p><p>Check each individual chapter summary to see if it's in the 'official' timeline, or if it's AU but within the Shadows/Light world. Cheers!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Colours

**Author's Note:**

> TIMELINE POSITION: Around _From the Darkness We Rise_ , after Jack's disclosure of his past, and how he'd previously been getting 'affection' from spirits.
> 
> This is just a short character study of Pitch, and how he perceives the fears of Jack and others as colours. 
> 
> This has fairly strong foreshadowing regarding Augus' motives re: Jack. I wouldn't call it a spoiler per se, but...it orbits the area of being spoilerish?

Jack’s baseline of fear – as he likes to think of it – is a pale blue. It’s there all the time, unless he is sunk in the very deep stages of sleep. Otherwise, it is there when he is laughing, when he’s mocking someone, when he’s being a brat, when he’s dreaming, when he’s interacting with others, when he looks relaxed, when he _thinks_ he’s relaxed.

It is so constant that at first Pitch had assumed that Jack had encountered some terribly abusive situation. And – as the Nightmare King – it had made Jack appear the easiest to exploit. That hadn’t worked out, which was probably for the best, really, because Pitch now preferred a Jack who wasn’t broken. The Nightmare King liked to break things. Shadows weren’t careful with their toys.

The pale blue of his fear was so constant that Pitch had caught himself becoming used to it, adjusting in the way Jack had clearly adjusted, simply assuming that it was a pale blue that didn’t indicate anything other than a sweet thread of colour winding its way behind his mind’s eye. It was only – now – when he focused or concentrated that he was reminded that it was constant _fear._

Pitch had always processed fear as colour. Other warriors had tasted it, some had heard it in a background symphony, but Pitch found it wove through him as a tapestry, weaving across the light spectrum. Some colours were fairly standard across the board; terror almost always came through as a blazing white. The intensity of the blaze matched the intensity of the terror. But otherwise, a person’s fears were highly individual. Sandy’s low-grade fear of not reaching as many children as he wished every evening was a dim olive green. North’s fear that Jack wasn’t being honest with him – not that he was being honest with him, Jack didn’t do ‘being honest’ – was a _Cassia_ brown, and Pitch suspected that connected to something far older. Fears that sat on the brown and grey spectrum connected to something long buried. 

With most people, he had to turn his mind’s eye inward and focus on the streams of colours to pick out the fears. Unless the fear was right there and hammering at him, it was just background static. With those he knew well, the colours translated without him having to think about it. 

Jack’s fear that Pitch would leave him was an icy, mint green. It was jagged and caught on his thoughts. Whenever it grew stronger, Pitch found it hard to concentrate. His mind wanted to respond, to smooth the fear down, at least get it flowing again so it wasn’t catching on every damn thing in his head. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Disturbingly sentimental, but the only thing that seemed to work as a temporary measure. 

When it smoothed down though, Pitch realised that he liked it swirling inside of him. Jack’s curling fear that Pitch would abandon him was a novelty. People did not fear him _leaving._ For a long time, people feared his approach. And even as General, his fellow soldiers would sometimes feel bolts of apprehension, seeing him striding towards them. After all, Generals could dole out criticism and praise, and they always represented the promise of more work, of war, of putting lives on the line. There weren’t many people in the world who had feared that Pitch would leave them. 

So he liked it, but only when it was soothed and flowing smoothly. Otherwise it disrupted his focus, left him turbulent as it rasped at him. 

Jack’s fears were like that, he discovered. They could be soft as snow, or icicles falling hard into the centre of his brain. 

He wouldn’t forget how Jack had responded to Mora’s feeding frenzy in a hurry.

The fears of others could, on occasion, split open and colonise his mind. It didn’t often happen, but when it did, he experienced someone else’s fear as his own. He had learned – over time and often in the middle of battle – the skill of asking himself, ‘Is this fear mine? Does it belong to me?’  
Jack made him ask himself that question more often than was normal. 

It wasn’t – after all – common for Pitch to find himself thinking, _That’s too much fear. That’s an excess of terror. What_ happened _to you?_

It was very like him to assume the worst. Most people had the luxury of hiding their minds from the truth. But Pitch walked through a crowded neighbourhood and could feel the statistics in the form of fears. He knew of the murderers, the paedophiles, the torturers and their victims. He saw them going about their lives in the prisons of their minds, corrupted or broken or both, worrying about getting caught, going to jail, being killed, being hurt again. The shadows liked Earth a great deal. There was a lot to eat. 

Without the shadows, though, it left Pitch soured on the human species overall. Nothing wrong with being a recluse. 

But Jack didn’t quite fit. He didn’t read like a rape or abuse victim, and yet, sometimes there were glimpses of it. He didn’t feel like someone who had been tortured, and yet, at certain times, he could have sworn...

Pitch only knew of one way to get to the bottom of something, outside of simply picking up knowledge from strands of colour. So he pushed. He found varying ways to elicit answers to the questions that pressed unabated. What is this? Why are you feeling this way? What is this colour that I’m getting from you, that I can’t identify? Where do your fears come from? What lurks in your past? How come _that_ event didn’t disturb you at all, but that one has left a crack in your soul? Why? 

In this, he also wanted to understand what was happening to himself.

He had some clarity now. He knew that the consequences of isolation and solitary confinement had worked a damage that was irreparable. In a thousand years time, Jack would still be waking up from nightmares, or having encounters with people that would touch on the wound of being unseen for so long. Nothing to be done about that.

Perhaps, if Jack had remembered his previous life, it wouldn’t have injured him so terribly. Pitch had spent a long time unseen also; but then, he’d not been in his right mind, and the shadows had been there, and in the background had been the plucking, insistent knowledge that there was something _more_ that he couldn’t quite remember. So his damage was not the same quality of damage.

And he knew more about Jack’s history. A satyr. _Great._ Jack didn’t think of it as rape, and it probably hadn’t been. But there would have been no affection, nothing beyond basic preparation and vigorous fucking and...if Pitch thought about it for too long, he caught his fingernails scraping down the centre of his palm. A satyr should never be someone’s first experience. 

And the others? Jack hadn’t elaborated. But there had been winding, twisting threads of fear there. Not rape, Jack had insisted, not _that._ What then? More violence? Yes. And the sense of utter worthlessness upon realising that you only had one thing that people wanted, and once they’d had it they didn’t want it again? Yes. How was that even possible? That conversation had been difficult. He hadn’t realised how hard he was leaning on Jack. The colours had muddied inside of him and he’d just wanted them separate and clean and he wanted to attach them to events, to knowledge. A known fear was far easier to relegate into background static, than one without a story attached to it. 

At least he could trust Jack to disengage when he felt trapped. Jack was no stranger to his own fight or flight instincts. And even if he was geared a little too heavily towards flight, at least he could access them.

In other areas, Jack’s fear was nowhere near where it should have been. Augus would destroy Jack if he got his hands on him. Pitch had seen that look on his face. Jack was just the kind of bold-but-frightened upstart that Augus would enjoy compelling into hideous acts. Pitch was still tossing up whether to ratchet up Jack’s fear of Augus so that it was accurate. As it stood, Jack’s fear of Augus was a small, trifling thing. A background concern. For some reason, he still didn’t take Augus seriously. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t seen him as a waterhorse, or because he hadn’t seen him rip someone to pieces, or maybe because Augus was so polite that Jack simply hadn’t caught the undertones. Honestly, Jack, you’re a naive idiot at the best of times. 

His fear of the Nain Rouge was proportionate. It gave him the impetus to hide when she was present, and the instinct to flee whenever he thought she might be too close. Pitch didn’t like feeling Jack’s fear of the Nain Rouge, but he was grateful that it was there. It lent self-preservation. It meant that Pitch didn’t have to keep such a close eye on him when she was present. Jack kept a very close eye on himself, when she was present. 

Fear was useful. 

Then there were the things that Jack didn’t even bother with. Jack really hadn’t feared him a great deal, even when he had been the Nightmare King and comfortable with destroying a person from the inside out. Jack accepted physical violence with an ease that was genuine. He’d been thrown around by the Nightmare King, fallen from the sky, pitched across the room when he’d discovered the locket, and his general reaction after shaking himself off was, ‘I’m fine, what’s next?’ He had a carelessness with his body that drifted somewhere between acceptance of his invulnerability as spirit, and a reckless attitude born of not seeing the point of his own existence. 

It was the things that Jack didn’t fear, sometimes, that sent a bell-like vibration of pain throughout his being.


	2. The Armchair (deleted scene sort of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack decides to bug the hell out of Pitch, and Pitch decides that if he’s going to be interrupted, he might as well make the most out of the situation. Not that Jack particularly minds… (this is pretty much 5000 words of fairly shameless blackice smut; on an armchair).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TIMELINE POSITION: AU, but it would be set somewhere between chapters 16 and 20 within the _From the Darkness We Rise_ events. This is AU because there is no way Pitch is *this* telepathic with people if he wanted to be, regarding their fears. Some hurt/comfort and feels in this one.

Pitch could feel him in the next room. 

Jack hyped up on nervous energy made it hard to concentrate. Fears swelled and crested and diminished and swelled again. It expressed itself as colours scattering through his mind and left him staring down at the pages of his journal, reading the same paragraph over and over again. Jack’s fear would diminish and Pitch would start again, writing out the robust lunar alphabet, following the same mental paths he’d wandered down so many times in the past, so many hundreds of years ago. They led him into deep focus, allowed him to open his mind to the light inside of himself, a challenge which had never been so difficult, as it had since he’d been depossessed. 

Just as he felt himself sinking deeper into trance, Jack’s fears crested again.

Pitch’s fingers tightened on the fountain pen, and then he placed it and the journal down, carefully. 

Most of the time, he didn’t listen in on Jack’s fears because there were too many, because if he spent all his time listening to Jack’s fears, he wouldn’t have time for anything else. Some were strong enough to press through and reveal themselves, a split in the stream of colour that would rise up as sentences or images or some intimate knowledge; but for the most part they stayed contained as colours. 

Now he opened his mind, wondered what – in particular – was bothering him tonight. He mentally grasped the streams of colour, held them lightly, listened and waited to see what came through.

_...won’t be good enough...all those warriors and I’m nothing like...what if he changes his mind, people do that, people..._

Pitch’s eyes narrowed. It was the low level grind that Jack frequently ran through in his own head, but more intense this evening. What could have caused it? He didn’t think that the confines of the Workshop would have been enough on their own, but he couldn’t think of any event to trigger this back and forth either. 

_What if he says no?_

Pitch shifted in his armchair. That came through loud and clear. He knew that Jack was thinking of him, felt his body warm in response, unbidden. Some warriors reacted to their internal darkness by becoming increasingly afraid of it, others reacted by becoming determined to wipe it out of existence, others became sadists. Pitch had hit the jackpot; he reacted to his ability to read the fear of others, to understand the darkness, by sometimes finding it a persistent aphrodisiac. It stirred his blood, left a palette of colour in his mind and body. 

On the one hand, he didn’t like the constant buzz of Jack’s fear, because he didn’t like it when Jack was hurting. On the other hand...

Pitch looked up knowingly when Jack knocked on his door. His fear was growing louder. Jack was anticipating rejection. Which meant he wanted something. Pitch’s fingers stroked the armrest absently. Jack _wanting_ something was always intriguing. 

‘Come in,’ Pitch called. 

There was a pause, and then the door opened a crack. Jack peered in, he paused when he noticed that the room wasn’t lit. Pitch supposed – to Jack – the room looked dark, but to him, it positively glowed from the light cast by his window. Jack stepped in and closed the door behind him. His fear turned from aquamarine to indigo. Pitch frowned. The darker it got, the less pleasant it was, the more muddled it became. Jack was very afraid. 

‘Hey, so, do you always just sit in the dark like a creeper?’ 

And, as always, Jack was very good at pretending as though he wasn’t afraid at all. 

‘What do you want, Jack?’ Pitch said, smoothing his voice out. Jack’s fear bubbled up closer to the surface and he heard Jack take a deep breath. He was surprised when Jack walked directly over to him, stood by the coffee table where his journal and fountain pen rested. 

‘Uh, a nightcap? It’s just- Hey, are you not wearing a shirt?’ 

Pitch resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Jack had the concentration span of a very small insect.

‘I am not.’ 

A corner of his mouth tilted up. A nightcap? Jack had never been particularly forward, not that he’d had many chances to find out just how forward Jack could be. But Pitch suspected that Jack preferred privileging his fear of rejection over taking chances with lovers. Pitch felt flattered, even as Jack’s fear skated through him, lending a deep blue aftertaste to his own thoughts. For Jack to even consider this... maybe they were making some sort of progress.

‘Maybe we could even things up a bit, and you could remove that sweatshirt of yours,’ Pitch said, smiling as Jack’s eyes widened. In the dark, Jack didn’t school his features as much as he normally did. Pitch found it endlessly appealing that Jack found it easier to be _himself_ under the cover of darkness. It bemused him. 

He expected Jack to refuse, to demur, and was pleasantly surprised when Jack started to remove his sweatshirt. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his staff, and so Pitch took pity on him, leaned forward and eased it from his grasp. Jack paused, watched cautiously as Pitch hooked it over the back of the armchair. Jack blinked at it, and then pulled the rest of his sweatshirt off, baring himself to Pitch’s hungry gaze. 

Aside from the scar at his throat, Jack was mostly unscarred, un _touched_. It roused old pathways of darkness inside of him, but he quelled them. Jack was not like some of his other lovers. Not one to be cut and bled. That had been a different time, he had been a different person. But still... he couldn’t lie to himself. That slight form left him hungry and wanting. 

‘Come here,’ Pitch murmured, and Jack stepped forward once, twice, still hesitant. He tensed when Pitch curved broad hands around his waist. Pitch gazed up at him, wondered how much he could get away with. Without any preamble he slid his hands down and hooked his fingers into the hem of Jack’s pants, tugging hard. One of Jack’s hands came up to rest on Pitch’s wrist, lightly, unsure. He could feel uncertainty there. A moment of indecision. 

Pitch ignored it. Jack’s insecurity around sexual matters was not nearly as worrying as his fear of being rejected. Besides, he wanted to sink teeth into Jack’s skin. Wanted to touch. Wanted him undone. If Jack was going to ruin his concentration, take away his night of meditation, he was going respond accordingly. 

In very little time at all, Jack was completely naked, fingers twitching nervously. 

‘What, exactly, were you hoping for? What is your idea of a _nightcap?_ ’ 

‘Uh,’ Jack said, eloquent as ever, as Pitch dug fingers into flesh and pulled Jack forwards until he was straddling one of his legs. The armchair was huge, perfect for this. Jack could kneel over Pitch’s thigh and there was still room for both of them. 

‘If you don’t answer me, I’ll decide for you,’ Pitch said, and he heard the click of a swallow made by a dry mouth. 

He ran the palm of his hand up the outside of Jack’s cold thigh, repeated the gesture. He supposed it was soothing, because Jack relaxed slightly. He wasn’t quite settled on Pitch’s thigh, he wasn’t _comfortable_ , but he would get there. Eventually. 

He curved his fingers over Jack’s ass and closed his eyes briefly as Jack’s arms came up. One hand pressed into his shoulder, the other rested on his chest. Pitch realised that Jack was feeling his heartbeat. 

‘No ideas?’ Pitch whispered. 

‘Y-you decide,’ Jack replied, nervously. 

‘Settle,’ Pitch said, pushing down on Jack’s hips to indicate what he meant. He let a note of command enter his voice. Nothing too pushy, no. Jack responded to the faintest order if he was given a chance to. His eagerness to please was only tempered by his fear that he would get something wrong. 

‘But-’

‘Settle,’ Pitch said again, raising his thigh slightly, pressing up against the centre of him. Jack’s fingernails dug into Pitch’s skin, and as Pitch slowly relaxed his thigh against the armchair, Jack allowed his weight to rest on Pitch’s thigh uncertainly. One leg braced himself on the armchair, the other touched the floor. ‘Very good,’ Pitch said, and waited for that unpleasant prickle that followed every time he praised him. 

He knew Jack liked being praised, had seen the results of it as his body stirred, but there was a fear there. One he couldn’t quite get behind, couldn’t quite open up and see into. It was tantalising. He’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he had thought about pinning Jack down and lavishing praise upon him until whatever that darkness was cracked open, and Pitch was finally allowed to see the pain that drove it. That was a darker impulse, one that he wouldn’t indulge, one that stayed locked down in the dark pit of him. It said a lot about Jack’s personality, though. A lot about the depths of his insecurities. No false modesty here. Not when praise could potentially ruin him. 

He satisfied himself with these small compliments, enjoying the frisson it sent through Jack’s skin. Better, Jack was already hard, so responsive. He shoved away his anger at all those who had gone before him, he doubted any of them knew what they had when they were having him, taking him. He doubted a single one of them understood how much of a treasure Jack could be.

He trailed fingertips down the centre of Jack’s chest. At least he understood – he hoped – how much of a treasure Jack was. He brushed his palm over Jack’s arm, down his sides, over the bumps of his ribs. He watched his hand move with no particular purpose, no particular end point in mind. He wanted to savour. He wanted Jack to realise that sometimes he could ask for something, and it would go very well for him. 

Jack was shivering, though his skin was already starting to warm. Jack’s arm hooked around the back of Pitch’s neck as he leaned forwards, and Pitch tilted his mouth up as Jack clumsily pressed his lips to his. Jack’s fingers splayed on his shoulder, and Pitch hissed when he felt the cold fire of frost paint his skin. Jack tensed beneath his arms, and then – presumably when Pitch didn’t push him away it – he relaxed into the kiss, opening his mouth for Pitch’s tongue. 

He tasted like snow in the air, like taking a deep breath and letting ice crystals into his lungs. Beneath that, he tasted like spearmint and something strangely sweet. Pitch hoped one day their circumstances would relax enough that he could truly take his time with Jack, the way he wanted to. He wondered whether Jack would spend time with him in his house in Kostroma, if he would give him weeks or months or – he hardly dared to think it – years. He wondered whether Jack would let Pitch kiss him for hours, if he would permit Pitch chasing that sweetness. 

The frost on his skin was already starting to melt, but Jack made more when his fingernails suddenly dug hard into his skin. Pinpricks of pain radiated down Pitch’s shoulder and he spread his other leg wider to adjust for his increasing hardness. Jack’s nails were blunt, but he pressed them in as though he was about to fall from a high precipice. He made a small, soft noise that hummed through Pitch’s mouth, and then he moaned sharply when Pitch thrust his tongue deep in response. His legs were completely relaxed now where they straddled him. His hips rocked once, seeking. 

‘Tell me,’ Pitch said quietly, holding his mouth away from Jack’s seeking lips, brushing breath against the cool skin. 

‘Wh-what?’ Jack replied, voice a confused rasp. When Pitch’s hand curled around the swell of his ass, Jack’s breath hitched. 

‘What do you want?’ 

‘This is good,’ Jack said, opening his eyes to half-mast, looking at Pitch in confusion. ‘Is this not good?’ 

Pitch cursed himself silently as Jack’s fear rippled through his mind, a wash of colour, not all of it pleasant. He pulled Jack forwards with the hand curved around his ass, and slipped the fingers of his other hand easily around Jack’s cock, swallowing when Jack cried out, when the fear that grew between them both burst like a soap bubble. Jack’s whole body lurched forward, cold fingers threaded their way through Pitch’s hair, and Pitch focused on his breathing, focused on the pliant body and the mouth that opened over his on a wet cry that caused cold, icy air to gust over his face.

‘This is very good,’ Pitch whispered against his lips. He moved the hand on Jack steadily, holding his lips just out of reach, listening to each gasp that he wrung from him. Jack’s mouth opened, he blindly licked forward with his tongue, seeking, and Pitch opened his mouth for the kiss. 

Pitch encouraged Jack to rock on his thigh, finding that simple, naive seeking delicious. There was an innocence to Jack, a simplicity that belied the centuries he spent being tumbled by idiots. There was something quintessentially wild about him, a fey quality that he didn’t see in himself. Pitch sometimes felt as though he had caught a wild animal, encouraging it forth with touches and warmth. And like a wild animal, he could disappear so quickly. He hid behind casual words and a carefully constructed facade, but the fun Pitch knew lived within him was not a tame, childish thing. It was a feral mischief, a love of exhilaration and adrenaline. He brought the wildness of his nature to the suburbs, to the cities. He slept in trees. 

And Pitch knew, he knew in a way that made him loathe the ignorance of those who didn’t see Jack, how lucky he was. How fortunate. What did Jack see in him, that made him come back, despite his wild fears, his wary ways? What had he done to earn his faith? His loyalty?

Pitch moaned in his throat. It had been so long. So long since he’d felt anything like this. And perhaps he’d never felt anything quite like this, because all qualities of love were different, and Jack was _different._

Jack breathed out a groan of response, pushing himself into Pitch’s hand, fingers scraping along Pitch’s scalp, freezing the roots of his hair. Pitch opened his eyes, looked up, and smirked when he saw Jack’s face, eyes closed, eyebrows pulled tight together, mouth half open as he sought pleasure, as his fears ran deep within him. They were almost silent now, a simple pale blue that tasted of the wildest, coldest places.

‘Jack,’ Pitch whispered, and Jack gasped loud, trembled in Pitch’s hands. 

Pitch twisted his calloused thumb over the head of Jack’s cock, caught precome and smeared down, firm and demanding. Jack’s chest heaved on a harsh cry, his eyes flew open, blue and unseeing as he jerked into Pitch’s grip, encouraged by Pitch’s other hand. Always that element of surprise when he came, as though he could hardly believe it was happening, the pleasure a shock instead of an expected outcome. 

Pitch swallowed hard when his torso was striped with liquid cold, he resisted the urge to grab, to take, to possess. 

Jack’s eyes dropped down to Pitch’s as his body continued to rock, noises still tumbling from his mouth. Pitch arched up, captured Jack’s lips in his own, and was rewarded when Jack eagerly thrust his tongue into his warm mouth, curling the cold muscle around his own, emitting a stuttering, helpless groan as Pitch dragged out his climax. And when Pitch stretched Jack’s limits, moving his hand to the point of over-sensitivity, Jack shuddered in his hands and fingers kneaded into his scalp and shoulder. Frost spiralled down all the way to his ribs, and Pitch gasped at how quickly the spirals spread out over his skin, sharp little ice crystals anchoring in all of his pores. 

He removed his hand gently, rubbed both of his palms up and down Jack’s spine, mapped the way his muscles flexed and shifted beneath skin. 

Jack broke the kiss so he could lean forwards, pushing his head into the space between Pitch’s head and shoulder. Pitch shifted his legs again, turned on, hungry, unwilling to push. He was absolutely certain that if Jack decided to fall asleep on the armchair, he was going to have to leave him and finish himself off. 

He trailed the backs of nails down Jack’s skin, and Jack murmured something muffled into his shoulder. 

A moment passed, and then Jack’s hand trailed down Pitch’s chest slowly, slack. His fingertips stilled when he reached his own ejaculate, and he shifted, looked down.

And then _giggled._

Pitch rolled his eyes, huffed, and then watched in amazement when Jack smeared his hands through the ejaculate and brought it up to his lips. Watching Jack’s tongue flick over the taste of himself, curious and unabashed, sent tremors up Pitch’s arms, made his fingers clench on Jack’s skin. He didn’t dare say anything to interrupt. 

Jack’s eyes flickered towards Pitch as he slipped the last finger from his mouth. Pitch exhaled slowly as Jack’s fears shimmered upwards, tentatively swirled around themselves. Jack was mildly scared, probably uncertain, but he wasn’t genuinely afraid. It was clear he’d been so isolated that he’d never had a chance to learn about certain taboos in human society, for which Pitch was fiercely grateful. 

‘You liked that?’ Jack said, and Pitch nodded, fingers tightening, encouraging. 

‘That time you put your fingers in my mouth, after...’ Jack couldn’t finish the sentence, but Pitch knew exactly what he was referring to. He could almost feel the coolness of Jack’s mouth around his two fingers right now. He closed his eyes, remembering. ‘I liked it,’ Jack finished. 

Pitch decided then and there, that actual heroism was not grabbing Jack’s hand and dragging it underneath the hem of his pants and telling him to _get on with it._ Jack wasn’t even _trying_ to turn him on. He was completely without guile. 

He held his breath as Jack’s hand touched his chest again, sticky from his own saliva, and trailed back down the warm skin. When Jack’s palm ghosted lightly over Pitch’s pants, Pitch’s head dropped back onto the armchair. 

‘Jack,’ Pitch said, deciding at some last ditch attempt at offering reassurance, ‘you don’t have to-’

‘I like this too,’ Jack said, and Pitch’s eyes opened, caught the hint of an impish light in Jack’s eyes. 

He smiled, helpless, as Jack wound his way off the chair and dragged his own sweatshirt to rest underneath his knees. He tugged at Pitch’s pants, and Pitch lifted his hips obligingly as Jack moved them carefully down. Jack’s fears registered as small waves lapping at the shore of Pitch’s mind, back and forth, back and forth. Nothing too overwhelming, nothing that was unusual or out of place. It felt good. It turned the space behind his eyes to mint green and azure. 

He canted his hips, pushed them forward on the armchair helpfully, and then his hands stiffened when Jack leaned up and licked at Pitch’s torso, laving him clean with long strokes. 

_Dear god,_ Pitch thought, closing his eyes and shuddering. Jack was thorough, sensual, his hands gripped Pitch’s thighs tightly. His tongue was clever, cold, tickled him with ice crystals. 

Jack paused when Pitch’s skin was clean, rested his forehead against Pitch’s belly, and Pitch frowned as Jack’s fear crested again, flavoured with a strong uncertainty. He waited, looked down at the top of Jack’s head, the pale, silvery hair.

‘Pitch?’ Jack whispered against his skin.

‘Mm?’ 

Jack didn’t reply, and then one of his hands lifted up from Pitch’s knee and reached up to take his hand off the armrest. He brought it over, rested it on top of his hair, and Pitch bit his lower lip. Jack had no idea, no idea how much Pitch liked a submissive partner, a submissive _Jack._ Pitch flexed his fingers and then pushed lightly, down, and Jack resisted for a second before his shoulders bowed gracefully and the cold tip of a tongue flicked at the head of him. Pitch breathed out through his nose at the cold. It didn’t bother him, but it jarred at first, made his awareness narrow down to the point where Jack’s breath touched him, where his tongue curled curiously around him. 

‘Do you like it, when I direct you, Jack?’ Pitch said quietly, and Jack’s head moved in a small nod. 

Pitch moved his other hand to the top of Jack’s head, curled fingers down so that they were splayed around his ear, thumb touching his cheek. Jack shivered, and Pitch cleared his throat, wondered how far he could push this, because he wanted to, oh, it was too tempting, with Jack between his legs and kneeling on the floor in front of him. He had thought of it. He had spent time, distracted, in this very armchair, imagining this. Long days of training had ended with an imaginary Jack, fingers through imaginary hair. 

‘Would you let me direct you now?’ Pitch said, and Jack moaned, his whole body shuddered. Fingers dug into his knees. 

_He will be the death of me._

Pitch’s hands shifted again over Jack’s head, and Jack pushed up into them, eager. 

‘Come on,’ Jack breathed, hoarse. ‘I know you want to.’ 

Something dark, repressed, snarled up in Pitch’s body and his hands fisted in Jack’s hair, pushed down so that Jack had no choice but to open his mouth and envelop him, and he kept pushing until Jack quickly moved his hand from Pitch’s knee to his shaft to prevent himself from being pushed down too far. 

Pitch had the briefest moment where he checked inside himself to make sure Jack’s fears weren’t moving into uncomfortable places. They’d flared, but stayed clear. Pitch groaned when he realised that Jack’s fear was staying within pure, simple spaces, uncomplicated, as sweet as the flavour of his mouth. 

After that, Pitch didn’t care much about finesse. He arched his hips into Jack’s mouth as he encouraged Jack’s head up and down, occasionally lightening his grip so he could trail the backs of his fingernails down Jack’s face, or trace the tautness of his lips with fingers. 

And Jack... Jack was moaning more than Pitch was, mouth wide and sucking hard on the upstroke. Jack’s fingers gripped tight around him, a constant cold band, even as his mouth was warming up quickly due to the friction. Pitch didn’t think he’d ever get tired of the power he felt knowing he was changing Jack’s body temperature. The glow in Jack’s eyes became febrile and aroused, he would shiver, his cheeks would pink up. And if he got warm enough, his normally dry, cool skin would break out in a layer of sweat.

As his forehead had now. 

Pitch pushed Jack down again and held him there, knowing that Jack didn’t need to breathe, even if it was a habit of his. Jack tensed and then whimpered out a sound and went limp against him, moving his tongue, sucking. 

‘Are you hard again?’ Pitch asked, and Jack moaned an affirmation that went straight through Pitch and made him twitch in Jack’s mouth. 

‘Take yourself in hand. Let’s see how well you can concentrate.’ 

Jack’s eyes opened and he looked up at Pitch, sucking so hard that Pitch’s eyes fell shut. But he felt Jack’s muscles shift as he removed his other hand from its death grip on Pitch’s knee, and placed it around himself. He felt Jack’s mouth work around him absently, as he moved his hand around himself. The movements were hesitant, they started off slow.

‘Sensitive?’ Pitch murmured, knowing he would be. Jack made another sound of acknowledgement, and Pitch decided that this was perhaps one of the best ways to have a conversation with Jack. Yes or no questions only, and no tangents or hiding behind anything except the moment between them. Pitch thrust up and Jack’s throat closed hard around him, he swallowed and made a grunt of shock. Pitch exhaled hard when he felt Jack’s body rock rhythmically, his hand had started moving firmly now. 

‘It’s tempting to keep you here for a very long time,’ Pitch murmured. ‘And you’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you?’ 

Jack positively quaked. When Pitch’s hands gentled in his hair and Jack continued bobbing up and down of his own volition, Pitch decided there was no way he could have known, no way he could predicted he would ever be this fortunate. 

‘Match the rhythm of your hand to that of your mouth,’ Pitch rasped, and Jack pulled off entirely, a string of saliva and precome keeping him connected as he stared up at Pitch.

‘You’re killing me here,’ Jack said, voice thick, eyes dazed. Pitch grinned at him. Jack’s eyes narrowed mutinously. ‘You can’t tell _anyone_ else that I like this, okay?’ 

‘Why would I tell anyone else? I want you for myself,’ Pitch said, and then smiled. ‘And as it stands, there is nothing wrong with you liking this. We’re both enjoying ourselves aren’t we?’

Jack exhaled ice crystals onto Pitch’s shaft, and Pitch swore to himself that his eyes did not just roll up into the back of his head. Jack chuckled at him, indulgent. If this was a glimpse of the Jack that lurked behind all of that fear, Pitch was going to hold onto him for as long as Jack would let him. 

Jack licked at the head of Pitch’s shaft, and Pitch kept his hands soft and gentle in his hair, caressed him. 

‘I didn’t know it could be like this,’ Jack said, so quietly that Pitch didn’t even know if Jack had meant to say it out loud. Pitch pressed his lips together. Jack was an unexpected knife-wound to the heart, at times. 

He wanted to ask, _Like what?_ He wanted to say, _It can be like this whenever you want._

In the end, Jack started again without waiting for Pitch to say anything, which Pitch took as a sign that Jack really _hadn’t_ realised he’d said it out loud. Jack’s head pushed up impatiently into Pitch’s hands, asking for pressure, for direction, and Pitch obliged, dictating the rhythm and sighing in satisfaction when he felt Jack match the pacing with his spare hand. He was struggling to coordinate his movements, and knowing how hard he was trying made liquid light race through his body. At this rate, Pitch wasn’t going to last more than a few minutes, not with Jack’s mouth warming around him, knowing that Jack was concentrating on obeying so sweetly. 

After a minute, Pitch noticed that Jack was responding to Pitch’s signs arousal. He stopped repressing his trembling, slid his legs wider, and Jack noticed and his hand fumbled on himself. For the first time he didn’t suck on the upstroke, forgetting himself, losing himself in his own pleasure. Pitch made a sound of approval, and Jack whimpered. Pitch could not believe how generous Jack was, how unconsciously giving. Even now, he could read the signs; Jack was close, again. _Bless the refractory period of younger men._

Pitch guided Jack to a faster speed. Jack’s mouth was wet and open for him, he was moaning on every second breath, and the vibrations made Pitch shiver, raised goosebumps on his skin. 

It was Jack, uncoordinated and stiffening, still moving his head despite being overcome by sensation, that tipped Pitch over the edge. He thought he’d hold down Jack’s head as he came, but as tremors shot through him, he found himself cradling the back of his head, stroking the side of his face, hands shaking. Jack was making sounds somewhere between a sweet pain and intense pleasure, even as he swallowed Pitch down. He sketched the noises out of his throat so that they fell, rough, against Pitch. 

Jack withdrew first, because Pitch was dragging him up, putting hands underneath his shoulders and lifting. Jack put his hands out on Pitch’s chest, and one wet and sticky from his own release. And Pitch didn’t care if he was wrapping his arms around him too tightly. He sought out Jack’s mouth with his own and kissed him, chaste, over and over again. 

Jack was still trembling, it took him a long time to finally relax, boneless, against Pitch’s torso. 

And then Jack laughed against his skin, laughed quietly, the sound shaking his shoulders.

‘Care to share?’ Pitch said, and Jack nodded. 

‘I was just thinking, that was kind of like...that was some nightcap, huh?’ 

Pitch laughed before he could stop himself, a surprised burst of sound. Jack turned to him like the sound was a lure, and pressed clumsy lips against the side of his mouth, smiling. 

‘So you’re not gonna keep working tonight, right? You’ve been at it like crazy lately.’

_Oh you sneaky little..._

Jack snuggled closer, locking himself around Pitch like the veritable limpet that he was. It was times like this Pitch was reminded that Jack used all of his limbs expertly when cavorting through the skies and across forests and buildings. He gripped Pitch like a monkey, even his toes curled dexterously, holding onto him. His fear was still present, but in a state that Pitch liked to think of as dormant, background noise; pale blue and pure. 

‘I like this armchair,’ Jack whispered, and Pitch smiled to himself, stroking one hand against the armrest.

He’d have to see if North would let him have it for his home in Kostroma. He didn’t think it would be a problem, once Pitch dropped hints about what they’d be using it for.


	3. Mora's Feeding Frenzy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's bad enough that Jack is staying with him in Kostroma for his own protection, but now he's locked into Mora's feeding frenzy, and it's not like Pitch doesn't have enough to deal with, seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This addition to the 'Pitch Perspective' series directly mirrors chapter 7 - Locket - from 'From the Darkness We Rise.' It will help to have read at least up to that chapter first, before diving into this. :)

Mora didn’t follow him up the stairs. It bemused him, how her loyalties were pulled between he and Jack. One moment, she sang Jack’s praises in good feeling and exhilaration and even love. The next moment she followed Pitch like a lost puppy, wanting the feeling of home and acceptance and understanding. But his mood was too black to offer her any reassurance, and gone were the days when he commanded the Nightmares with a simple word. Mora had changed and altered, he doubted she’d listen to him if she didn’t want to.

He was engaged in a thorny argument with himself. He was bewildered at his old genetics kicking in. How many years had he spent down in his lair, _ordered_ to by Augus, and not once had he felt a loathsome need to protect the Guardians? And then suddenly the scrawny, ‘I’m-not-allied-with-the-Guardians-except-when-convenient’ frostling followed a curious Nightmare into his lair and then what? Granted, it had been disturbing when Jack had been attacked by the Nain Rouge, but he wouldn’t have stood by and let her feed on _anyone._ He could almost convince himself that he wasn’t actually desperate to defend one Jack Frost, because the young, mad Tsar had chosen him.

He was _furious._ He wasn’t so far away from the dark void the living shadows had left inside of him, that he didn’t chafe at the idea of protecting do-gooders who _cared_ about defending children from bad dreams. He still – every time he saw Jack – half-expected black sand to swirl towards him in readiness to cut the brat down once and for all. Now he was back in Kostroma, after decades upon decades. He was hiding out from the Unseelie Court, instead of _allying_ with them.

His life had turned upside down. He didn’t like it. Most of all, he was furious with himself. To show his distress by exacerbating Jack’s fear like that was base, at best. The spirit was often scared enough, and it wasn’t like Pitch was proving anything except that he could be big and scary. _And let’s face it, you weren’t doing such a great job of that even when you were possessed, towards the end._

Pitch rolled his eyes at himself. He stalked towards a packet of matches, struck up a small flame, lighting one of the large candles by the windowsill. He didn’t need the light, but he liked its golden flame. It awoke a distant nostalgia in him, one that he couldn’t pin down. He was fond of candles.

 He sat down at his writing desk and opened an empty journal, staring at the blank pages with dissatisfaction. He didn’t feel like writing anything at all. Still, he withdrew a fountain pen, a small pot of ink from a drawer.

He could tell that Jack had walked back inside the house. The fact that – even at this early stage – he was beginning to sense where Jack was geographically based only on his fears was disturbing. _Pathetic._ Raising fear inside the frost spirit had done nothing more than show that Pitch was still capable of moments of extreme immaturity. It was a tantrum, plain and simple.

Long fingers came up and he massaged the back of his neck slowly, dropping his head and closing his eyes, shutting out everything but the calming candle’s glow behind his eyelids. He liked _space,_ he valued his time, and here he was sharing a home that he had clawed back for himself with Jack Frost. Pitch laughed under his breath, and then couldn’t stop, the sounds rolling out of him. And when a line from one of his favourite works by Russian poet, Osip Mandel’shtam, pushed its way into his head, his laughter tapered into a single, mournful sigh.

_This is what I most want, un-pursued, alone, to reach beyond the light that I am furthest from._

The rest of the poem eluded him. He knew he had some parchments of those poems somewhere, but he could not make himself seek them out. There were old memories in those poems, things the shadows had hid from him, things he had eventually turned away from. Memories of his betrayals, his sins, were crushing enough. But the shimmering, sweet memories behind those were unbearable.

Eventually he picked up the fountain pen and uncapped the ink, pleased that it was still liquid and clear of lumps or pollutants after all this time. He drew a slow line of uniform evenness down the page, and then another, parallel. Already, old rituals were coming back to him. Meditation that could be drawn forth through lines and letters. A calm that could be found in the centre of the page, if he took the steps to find his way there.

The meditation worked right up until a strange thread of jagged green cut across his vision. A moment later, a swell of loneliness, _abandonment._ Pitch gasped and put the fountain pen down. Had he done it wrong? Was that even _possible?_

He pushed his chair back, looking at the candle, scrutinising the black pathways inside of himself. But even as he attempted to find a still place – if not a peaceful place – the loneliness swelled again, eclipsed his thoughts, turned to an anvil in his stomach. He clutched at the wooden arms of the chair and took deep, slow, measuring breaths.

Jagged green, exploding into a dark, muddled, clotted mass. This was not one of his fears, this was not even Jack’s normal depth of loneliness.

_Mora’s down there right now. Mora was worried about him, scared for him, she’s hungry, you beetle-headed fool. You remember how a hungry Nightmare can feed, don’t you?_

Pitch got up so quickly that the chair overturned with a harsh clatter. He didn’t bother trying to quell the fear he felt as he raced down the stairs; it wasn’t his fear, he couldn’t quell it unless he removed the source. On the second staircase, the fear became a black, seething creature shot through with sparks of white terror, and Pitch teleported through the shadows immediately, landing in Jack’s room.

He was gasping around the fear he felt. He retched on it, and then thinned his lips, knowing that what he was feeling was only second-hand. It was hard to remember that. It had been so long that he’d interpreted anyone’s fears as anything other than delicious. But this, no, this was _not_ pleasant. This was awful.  To hell with telling himself that his protective instincts hadn’t _really_ kicked in, that he wasn’t really reverting to his old self. This was beyond bearing. His reaction to this depth of fear was proof enough; whether he wanted it to be true or not, he was not the possessed creature he’d once been.

 Jack was arched up in the bed, choking, looking like he was having a seizure, and Mora... _Mora. Dear god, you greedy little beast._

The fear that Jack was broadcasting was almost an exact mirror of what Jack had felt when the Nain Rouge had sucked part of his soul from his body, and Pitch didn’t even need to guess what fears Mora was feeding on. The very fear that had made her so frightened in the first place. It was as though she was trying to force it out of his body, but fears didn’t work like that, and the harder she tried, the more Jack shook violently and choked out those awful, locked up noises.

‘Mora, let him go! This is _not_ helping!’

Mora hadn’t even noticed he was there. Her whole body was shuddering. Her head was stretched forward, her mouth half-open, and her eyes were wide and blazing. Given the chance, she would ruin him, too much of _this_ and Jack would be-

Pitch’s teeth ground together when he sensed Jack’s fear transform from one determined to keep him alive, to one determined to seek out death. That need for _escape,_ it was a feeling Pitch was familiar with, and for long, stretched out seconds, it was all he could do not to race back upstairs and find one of his daggers, and do what he had contemplated doing in those rare moments of awareness when he’d been possessed by the shadows, or during the time he’d spent alone in his lair.

‘ _MORA!’_

But she would not respond, possessed by her own hungers and fears, trapped in a feedback loop with the world’s most frightened frost spirit. If he didn’t snap the loop soon, he would be plunged into it headfirst, and then where would they be? He had to do _something._

Pitch stalked to Jack and took his sweatshirt in his fist, knotting the fabric up and shaking him violently. If he couldn’t stop Mora, he would have to wake up Jack, and he couldn’t afford to be gentle. Not now. This could leave permanent damage if he didn’t intervene.

‘Jack you daft, stupid, idiot! _Wake up!’_

Nothing. He shook harder, stretching a useless arm out to Mora, as though he could physically make her stop.

‘ _Mora!’_ he shouted again, but getting her attention was useless. However, the shout did something, because the colour’s of Jack’s fears pulsed and flickered slightly, shifting as he moved towards consciousness. _Yes, wake up, stop this now. This is just excessive._

Jack snapped into consciousness with an incoherent cry, a noise that tumbled from his mouth. It was insecure, lost, alone. It cracked something inside of Pitch’s heart. It was too familiar. He didn’t want to empathise, he didn’t want to _know_ this. Things were far easier when he was taunting the boy about the loss of his human guardian, far _easier_ knowing that Jack’s loneliness wasn’t so deep, so anchored down in an immense, long-term reality of years and years of being alone.

Mora stamped and pawed at the ground in frustration, thrown out of the feedback loop, gorged and filled with fearlust, ready to finish. She lurched forwards and Pitch – one hand still in Jack’s sweatshirt – lunged at her.

‘Mora, _darling,_ I know you’re hungry. But get back, please. Get _back._ Let go of him!’

Jack’s fears split into a hundred strands of colour, still slightly better than that muddled, awful _mess,_ but not by much. Pitch heaved for breath, attempting to master himself, force back a Nightmare that wasn’t interested in listening to him, and keep his grip on a frost spirit who was nowhere near safe, nowhere out of the danger zone. Not yet.

The exact moment when Jack realised who was holding him, and then interpreted that with the frightened mind of one who had been locked into a terrifying nightmare, twisted through Pitch like a bolt of lightning. He turned as blunt fingernails did a surprisingly good job of tearing furrows into his skin, as cold and frost clawed up his arm, burning him in that strange way that ice could. He stared down in horror, meeting Jack’s unseeing, blue eyes, streaming tears.

‘ _No,_ Jack, wait,’ he said, letting go of his sweatshirt, struggling to make his voice sound soothing and failing. He was so out of _practice._ This was not something he remembered being good at. Not only that, but bearing the weight of Jack’s fear, knowing that Jack thought _he_ was the one trying to remove his soul, it made him feel sick. He didn’t want to be this person anymore. He didn’t want people to look at him like _this_ anymore.

‘ _Easy,’_ Pitch pleaded. ‘Come on, now. Easy now. It was just a nightmare.’ _Gods is_ my _voice shaking? This is beyond embarrassing._ ‘You are in Kostroma, in Russia. There’s no one else here except myself and Mora. I promise you. Easy now. Settle.’

He folded to his knees quickly, making himself smaller, knowing that he was doing no one any favours by towering over the spirit. He paused, took a breath. He knew what could help allay fear the most, but was uncertain if he should offer touch. It was only when a particularly powerful shudder shook Jack’s body that he reached forward without thinking. He took Jack’s cold hand in his own, laced his warm fingers through icy ones, willed Jack’s body temperature to respond. It was instinctive, wanting to warm, wanting to soothe. He knew Jack would likely not find warmth soothing, but he couldn’t – in that moment – help but offer it.

Jack’s other hand hadn’t stopped clawing at his chest. It was an automatic, instinctive motion, and Pitch singled out the fear it was connected to easily. _Damn it all, if I get my hands on that puerile little brat, I am going to make her regret crossing my path..._

‘I wouldn’t do that to you,’ Pitch said, because he _wouldn’t._ ‘You _know_ that. I didn’t even try when I was the Nightmare King, did I?’

Jack’s hand slowed, and Pitch was glad to make something like progress. The colours of Jack’s fears inside of him were not remotely calm, however. He felt as though he’d invited a whirlpool into his mind and body.

‘Come on now, _breathe,’_ Pitch said.

Jack responded without thinking about it, taking several, deeply shaky breaths. His other hand un-fisted from his hoodie and he reached up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, a gesture so childlike that Pitch’s heart hurt. He lowered his head for a few seconds, took some deep breaths of his own. _All I wanted was a quiet evening, that’s all, a_ quiet _evening. Clearly these things are just too much to ask._

Jack tried to remove his hand from Pitch’s grip, but Pitch couldn’t bring himself to let go. He listened as Jack swallowed audibly, felt the bed heave with the force of a repressed sob.

‘You, you don’t even want to be doing this. You _said_ so.’

Pitch took a deep breath, because he _had_ said that, hadn’t he? He’d been trying to deal with his own issues, and now he had to do damage control. He loathed damage control. He pinched the bridge of his nose, concentrated, cleared his head. This was not about him. That nightmare wasn’t even, really, about him. Jack was still responding to his fears, and there would be nothing rational about him until he calmed down. He _knew_ that.

‘Do you really think anything could be so simple?’ Pitch said, and then unclenched his hand where it had closed hard around Jack’s.

_No, cutting off someone’s circulation in their hand does not a reassuring presence make. You know that._

He sighed, eased closer to the bed.

‘You need this,’ Pitch said, shifting his hand within Jack’s and noticing that the skin was already warming, far more quickly than he’d expected. He found that interesting. He pressed his palm flat against Jack’s and tried to pretend that he didn’t miss skin to skin contact with someone. He failed, and decided to just make the most of it while he had it. ‘Mora took too much from you without realising. The nightmare was not...normal. You won’t settle down well on your own.’

Jack jerked, and Pitch couldn’t tell why. The mess of colours in his mind built and flared, and suddenly Jack’s fears were skyrocketing outwards, as choppily as they had in the dream.

_This was exactly my point. That nightmare was not normal._

‘Jack, listen to me. Focus on _me.’_

But words weren’t going to work. And new fears were growing, a fast-spreading plague that colonised Jack’s mind, and then his own. Pitch caught a new fear, a new colour and opened himself up to it. He frowned. He understood. He knew what it was to fear false comfort, false sympathy, he knew and had offered it to others at his darkest. He knew how it could hurt.

As cowardly as he could be, he could at least admit to himself that he didn’t want this to be false.

Jack started trying to tug his hand away and Pitch released it, shifting closer still. He reached up and placed gentle hands on Jack’s forehead. Once, a long time ago, he’d done this for soldiers in the field who were sick with shadow-fevers. He’d done this for young trainees who had just had the shadows peer into their souls for the first time and didn’t know how to stop screaming. He’d done it for his daughter. This was...this was familiar. He swallowed around a lump of nausea.

Jack’s whole body moved in the direction of the touch. He was so touch-starved that Pitch stared, because he knew loneliness personally, he _knew_ loneliness, but even he had never been quite so desperate for touch, he was sure of it. Didn’t Jack have all of those _Guardians?_ What were they doing? Were they so blind to this reality? Jack wasn’t even particularly good at hiding it. Anyone who looked at him hard could tell that he was lonely. It wasn’t a stellar, logical leap to think the spirit might crave physical affection.

Still, the way Jack leaned into his touch raked claws down the inside of Pitch’s heart. He sighed, he smoothed fingers over Jack’s skin, he tried to promise with touch that he wasn’t about to stop. And Jack...his fears responded so _quickly,_ it was uncanny. From panicking about anything his mind could manufacture and more besides, everything quietened. The touch was a mute button, and Pitch didn’t want to stop. This was fascinating.

Jack’s forehead wasn’t like any of the others he’d ever touched. It was cool, refreshing. He let the strands of Jack’s hair trace across his fingertips. It was coarser than he expected, and he supposed it needed to be, given how it had to stand up to the constancy of gale-force winds. He pushed his fingers directly into that mess of white thickness, and dragged his fingertips over Jack’s scalp in the approximation of a massage.

Jack inhaled sharply, his eyes closed. His arms actually started to lift and his fingers splayed out as though looking for something to grab onto, and Pitch _stared,_ because that was not a good sign. That was not someone who received anything like affection, _ever._ He swallowed hard. What was he even doing? He should not be indulging the frost spirit. He shouldn’t set up these invisible contracts, knowing that he was not the kind of person who could ever follow through. He was not – categorically _not_ – the person anyone should come to if they wanted consistency.

He had been broken, once upon a time, and no one else would ever be as aware of it has he was.

And yet...there was a part of him that wanted to pick Jack up and pull him into his lap, drape arms around him and whisper reassurances that maybe he would also believe, if he said them fervently enough.

The hatred that followed on the heels of that was familiar and expected and almost like having a family member over to visit. Pitch had never much loved his family.

And while he was dealing with his own demons, Jack managed to stumble into a sandtrap of his own. Fear shot back up again. Pitch’s eyes widened, he coughed to catch his breath; Jack was sending him self-hate and shame of such a degree that it felt like _his_ and he just wanted it out of his mind, he had enough of his _own_ to deal with. It was painful, there was absolutely nothing in Jack’s mind that worked to contain the spill of his feelings. This wasn’t like working with Golden Warriors who had learned how to control their fears, only letting the tiniest wisps up. This wasn’t even like humans with their nightmares and their worries. This was something else entirely, and the fears bumped and pushed through him, grabbing and snatching, causing pinpricks of pain to prickle all the way through his body.

‘ _Jack,’_ Pitch said, ‘this is still Mora, still her influence, I promise you. I want you to look at me, _please.’_

Jack opened eyes reddened from tears, still crying silently. He sought out Pitch’s face and stared, blinking, dazed.

_Oh, Jack._

He had seen glimpses of this vulnerability in Jack before, when the shadows had swirled through and around him. It was tantalising back then, a tempting treat that the living shadows had wanted to destroy and own and possess. Even now, he could still feel those old neuronal pathways lighting up in his brain, sending flares. It was hard to see that expression and not remember how he’d thought about it mastering it, destroying it, how he’d _wanted._

But things were different now. He was not a possessed, uncouth creature. Jack was not the enemy, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was. He was barely even a Guardian, for all that he was now a part of their little club.

‘Oh, she got you good, I’m afraid,’ Pitch whispered. He carded his hands through Jack’s hair, frowning at Jack’s confusion. He curled his palm around the back of Jack’s head, kept his hands moving. Already, Jack’s skin was starting to warm. The coldness was crisp, but had less bite to it.

‘N-nothing like that has...has ever happened to me before,’ Jack said, his breath hitching on the words.

‘It was a feeding frenzy,’ Pitch said, looking at Mora and frowning. He kept his fingers moving the entire time, and his lips began to tighten into a smile when Jack responded with a shiver. Yes, he liked this skin to skin contact very much. He was surprised when his mind threw up a sudden jumble of images. More of that delicious skin to skin contact. A Jack whose back was arching, whose eyes were still foggy and unclear with tears as gasps came and he couldn’t help but _respond_ -

_Concentrate._

‘The encounter she had with the Nain Rouge was not only stressful for you. In saving her life, you threatened your own. She is attached to you, she prefers to feed on _your_ fear above all else, and your life being threatened put her in a precarious position. She was already hungry, and lost her way through the maze of your fear. It may sound strange, but Nightmares fear things too. It makes them dangerous when they’re feeding.’

‘Aren’t you loving this?’ Jack said, ‘I thought you loved suffering.’

Pitch sighed. Everyone always got it _wrong._

‘I love _fear._ And I’ve had plenty tonight. You manufacture it in abundance.’

_I don’t even love the entire spectrum of fear. Please. As though it would ever be so crass and crude. I would explain it to you, but I despair of you ever understanding._

Jack was shifting, _away,_ and Pitch curled his fingers – anxious – wondering what had happened. In response to that simple gesture, however, Jack slumped back to the bed.

‘I only meant that sometimes there can be too much of a good thing,’ Pitch added, trying to smile and offering a failure that Jack still interpreted well enough. He laughed anyway.

Minutes passed, and Pitch found himself unable to stop caressing Jack’s hair, trailing fingers over his skin. He enjoyed the way the hair moved back into position once his fingers had left it, he warmed parts of Jack’s scalp and returned fingers to those spaces, noticing the way Jack’s breathing would change as he did so. He couldn’t look away, wanting to learn every response and tuck it somewhere deep, where he could find it later. If this was the last time he was permitted to soothe someone for a while – years or centuries maybe – he was going to make this last. And he found that he was not only especially bothered that it was Jack that he was doing this for, he actually found that he was enjoying himself for the sake of it.

The simple textured pleasures in life were the ones that kept him focused and grounded. They were the things that allowed him to live in that lair under the Each Uisge’s compulsion for so long. They kept him focused now.

Jack rattled out a loud sigh and his whole body went lax, the fears began to properly spiral away. It was almost as though Jack had turned a switch off in his own head. Pitch wondered what it was. Trust? Acceptance? What? At times like this, he wished fear was not the only emotion he could read. Still, he was glad for the shift. It made him realise how tense _he’d_ been, carrying the weight of all of Jack’s fears while he felt them.

‘There we go,’ Pitch said, rewarding him with more touch, more contact.

‘You don’t hate this, do you?’ Jack said in wonder. ‘The whole...your hand in my hair.’

_You’re not the only one entitled to wanting touch, you scrawny miscreant._

‘What normally happens after a child wakes up from a nightmare? They get comforted, if they are lucky enough. And I know you are no child, and that I am not parent, but fear has a better taste to it, if it can be soothed away. At least, so I thought before I became Pitch Black.’

Pitch’s eyes widened as he finished, staring – for a long moment – at the sheets on Jack’s bed. There, he couldn’t take that back again now that he’d said it. _Fear has a better taste to it, if it can be soothed away._

There was nothing of the living shadows in that statement. That was an old, old truism that sang of a Kozmotis Pitchiner he would prefer to leave far behind. Kozmotis had no place in this world, and everything he’d ever done had lead towards his ultimate ruin. He had no _room_ for that man. He did not _want_ him.

And, if this was a night for spoken insanity, why not just leap completely off that cliff? _Yes, why not? In for a penny, in for a pound._

‘And some of the contents of your nightmare were not unfamiliar to me,’ Pitch said, prepared to never admit to himself how much he was enjoying talking to Jack, of all people. ‘You are not the only one who fears being forgotten, as you’ll probably remember. And...you are not the only one who could do with some proximity.’

‘Oh,’ Jack said, and his eyes cleared to thoughtfulness. But that novel expression lasted a whole five seconds before Jack latched onto what Pitch had said about abandonment and was spiralling downwards faster than anyone should.

_Oh, this is just- Damn you._

Pitch stood up quickly, deciding that he’d explore Jack’s alarmed fear that Pitch – specifically _Pitch,_ not a generic ‘everyone’ – was going to leave him later. He sat down on the bed, increasing the proximity. He curved his hand around Jack’s cheek, fingers brushing back up into his hair again, trailing along his hairline.

Jack was staring up at him in shock, in realisation. Whatever switch Jack had in his mind had tripped and the fears were receding down to whatever Jack’s baseline usually was ( _afraid, his normal baseline is afraid)._ He looked at Pitch like he wasn’t just blindly accepting attention from anyone, but as though he was grateful to be accepting attention from _Pitch._ And Pitch found that he could do nothing but stare back, moving his fingers, warming Jack’s cheek, stunned by the strength of feeling that erupted inside of himself.

‘Should I stop?’ Pitch asked, testing, and Jack shook his head.

‘This is all _really_ confusing,’ Jack said, and Pitch laughed. Jack hadn’t looked away as he’d said it. He’d maintained eye contact, a gleam of his old self coming back. Pitch felt as though Jack had just peeled back a layer of himself and shown something _more_.

‘You don’t say.’

Jack breathed a breath of laughter that he didn’t even seem aware of. He leaned his head into Pitch’s palm, and Pitch thought his mouth might have gone dry.

‘What you said earlier,’ Jack said, ‘about not wanting to protect and defend us. Why is this different?’

Pitch had no clear answer to that question. He didn’t know why it was so different, he couldn’t explain why he found Jack so intriguing. He had thought – at first – it was simply the fact of meeting someone else who understood loneliness, who was young and naive and yet startlingly powerful and clearly wild enough to handle himself in most situations. But now he wasn’t so sure. His mouth twisted, he raised his eyebrows and decided it was his turn for some answers. Perhaps if he had some more information, his own thoughts would offer something of clarity.

‘Why did _you_ keep coming back after Mora lead you to me? Why did you even enter the home of your _enemy_ in the first place? And then why keep coming back to visit me the way you did?’

Jack swallowed hard and then winced, fingertips coming up and smoothing over his throat. Pitch wondered what it was like to walk around with constant icepacks. He waited to see if Jack would answer, Jack had a habit of evading the personal. But Pitch wanted to understand.

‘I felt...’ Jack’s eyes drifted over the ceiling as he tried to think for the right words, and then he grunted in frustration. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I felt, okay? I just didn’t like the idea of you being stuck down there, alone. I didn’t like it at...at the time, when it first happened, decades ago.’

Jack’s cheeks flushed a darker blue, and Pitch rubbed his thumb against it, curious, hooked on every word.

‘I told myself it was okay because you know, you were _evil,_ and you were trying to hurt children, and us. But – you know – I sat in on some university lectures for a couple of years and you know what they say about loneliness?’

Pitch had a single moment to imagine Jack sitting in on _anything_ approaching higher learning, and had to suppress a laugh.

Then he realised what Jack might be trying to say, and he shifted closer.

‘What do _they_ say?’ he said.

‘They say it _kills_ people,’ Jack said, averting his eyes for the first time. ‘That solitary confinement in a prison is like torture. It’s...it’s a human rights issue. You know, putting someone in jail so they can’t interact with anyone, that’s torture. And so it just...’

Jack looked uncomfortable, his pupils had dilated. Pitch felt a thread of pale vermillion loop up in his own body – another of Jack’s fears – and _this_ he had experienced before. Jack was afraid that Pitch would use this knowledge against him. Pitch thought that was wise, _always,_ but Jack could feel that fear just as well once he’d shared his thoughts on the matter. He might push Jack to keep talking.

‘Jack,’ Pitch said, ‘it just what?’

A long pause.

‘I thought about you, okay?’

Pitch exhaled slowly, stared. His fingers stilled on Jack’s face.

‘I thought about you sometimes,’ Jack continued. ‘I know it’s stupid. I didn’t visit until Mora lead me to your home that first time, but sometimes I thought about Antarctica. I mean, not the whole betrayal and you snapping my staff and stuff, but I thought about how you just...’

_Antarctica,_ one of the few times that Pitch had been less possessed by living shadows and more ‘himself’ than he could ever remember being. Antarctica, talking to Jack, it was one of the few experiences he remembered so acutely since crash-landing on the planet.

‘Just what?’ Pitch asked. He realised that he was pushing his hand against Jack’s face, as though he could slide the words right out.

‘I didn’t want to identify with you, I _really_ didn’t, okay?’ Jack stared into the darkness, tensing when his glance skated across Mora. ‘I couldn’t help it. I did. I came back because, because you seemed different. Because I was worried. At first that you were like, that you’d sent your shadows out to do something horrible and were just _pretending_ to be different, and then because you _weren’t_ doing that and I just wanted to know why. And I didn’t think, I didn’t think anyone deserved solitary confinement. How could I? It took me twenty or thirty years to even meet a _spirit_ who could see me, and by then...’

_Just who are you, Jack Frost?_

Without really thinking about it, Pitch stretched his fingers into Jack’s scalp, making sure he rubbed Jack’s cheek with the heel of his pain. He knew how touch could be many things; benediction, comfort, gratitude, sensuality, a combination of many things. In this, he intended only pure sensation and gratitude, he intended to reassure Jack that identifying with Pitch, that his hesitant care didn’t ever have to be a bad thing.

It didn’t, did it?

Jack shuddered, his eyes closed. Pitch was starting to entertain dangerous, tempting thoughts. The kind of thoughts that whispered darkly to him; _if he is this sensitive now..._ He moved his fingers an inch and Jack’s whole body made minute movements, responded. Pitch closed his eyes. He had to concentrate, if he didn’t concentrate he was going to lean down, he was going to taste what sort of wintry coldness lived inside of that mouth, he would let himself on a pathway that would make him throw away everything good about this unexpected evening.

‘Thank you,’ Pitch whispered with effort. Jack opened his sleepy blue eyes and Pitch’s breath caught in his throat. The moment lasted only a few seconds and then Pitch felt the precise moment it became uncomfortable. It was too much, for both of them. It had gone too far.

Pitch withdrew his hand regretfully just as Jack forced his face clear of all emotion and opened his mouth to say that he was feeling fine now – even though he clearly wasn’t.

But Pitch couldn’t bring himself to leave, and Jack didn’t ask him to. Seconds became minutes, and Pitch realised he felt comfortable. Jack was in his home in Kostroma, his _private_ home, and Pitch was sitting by his bedside and feeling _comfortable._

_If this isn’t the most damning condemnation on what your life has become, I don’t know what is._

Jack yawned and looked over at Mora.

‘Will she do that again?’ he said, his fears climbing slowly. Pitch blinked when he realised that some of those fears were a very strong concern for _Mora._

If one of the Nightmares had fed of him in such a way, he would not have been so quick to forgive.

He looked over at Mora and sighed. She felt bad too. Those two were so emotionally entangled with each other, it was as though she sprung up out of _his_ head. He knew that wasn’t the case, that she had visited Jack and simply _liked_ him – strange thing that she was – but she’d thrown her lot in with the frost spirit remarkably fast.

He beckoned her over and she hesitantly stepped forwards, looking warily at Jack, self-aware enough to not want to hurt him again.

When she reached Pitch, she pushed her head into his arm and her whole body sagged.

_That’s right, good girl, clearly everyone is just going to use me for reassurance tonight. Lovely._

He scratched at the side of her neck and she huffed against him. She was a small, pretty thing. Not nearly as fierce as most of the other Nightmares had been. He wondered if she had never formed very well, or if her shape had evolved with time.

‘She was frightened for you,’ Pitch said, remembering that Jack couldn’t read her like he could. ‘She thought you were dead, when the Nain Rouge attacked you.’

_As did I, for a moment._

Jack shivered.

_Alright, clearly_ everyone _thought you were done for, in that moment._

Between Mora’s insecurities and Jack’s sudden rise of fear, Pitch felt a sharp stab of exasperation. He wasn’t running a _daycare,_ he couldn’t fix anything. He made a sound of frustration as Jack’s fears shot up once more, remembering the Nain Rouge. It was taking him so long to calm down, the nightmare had hooked into him far too deeply, far too quickly.

‘Jack,’ Pitch said, ‘honestly, I know-’

‘No, you don’t know!’ Jack said, sitting up and pushing himself back on the bed, glaring at Pitch angrily as Mora startled backwards. ‘You don’t know, okay? Just like I don’t know what it was like to be possessed by shadows, you _don’t_ know. She didn’t take your _life force,_ she took shadows and demons from you. She _exorcised_ you when you couldn’t do it yourself!’

Pitch jerked, stared. His fingers started to clench slowly where they rested at his side.

_How dare you, how_ dare _you. I will make you see that you do not know what you are talking about, could never know. How_ dare _you!_

‘You think I didn’t try?’ Pitch said.

‘What?’ Jack said, blinking a confusion that made Pitch want to throttle him.

‘You think that I did not try to remove them myself?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jack said, a stubbornness entering his voice. ‘Did you?’

Pitch’s mind was so empty of anything but wanting to shake sense into him, that he realised he had to leave. Quickly. After being flooded with Jack’s irrational fears and now forced to listen to this tripe, he was not going to stick around and see out the consequences.

‘You seem to have brightened up a great deal. I’ll take Mora with me, and you can finish sleeping.’

Pitch stood up and felt a cold, sick illness move through his whole body.

‘What?’ Jack said, shocked. ‘No, I didn’t-’

Pitch couldn’t stay, he couldn’t hear any of this. His life wasn’t about having moments of revelation with a three hundred year old frost spirit who was a royal pain in his ass. It _wasn’t._

He walked quickly towards the staircase and was shocked when Jack tumbled out into the hallway.

‘You can’t keep doing this!’ Jack shouted at his back. ‘You can’t keep storming away just because someone says the wrong thing to you. I’m going to say the wrong thing, Pitch, I know hardly anything about you!’

Pitch paused at that. He took several deep breaths, and then looked over at his shoulder at Jack. Jack, with that disgustingly earnest and open expression on his face, who managed to shake off the dregs of his nightmare just fine as soon as he had someone else to panic over, someone else to feel _frightened_ for.

But it wasn’t real. Jack’s loneliness ripped too deeply, it biased him in favour of anyone who paid him the slightest amount of attention, and Pitch wasn’t interested in facsimiles of connection.

‘I had simply presumed you didn’t want to know,’ Pitch said.

He was halfway up the second flight of stairs when Jack’s quiet voice – no more than a whisper – reached his ears.

‘Maybe I do.’

Pitch refused to pause, refused to head back down the stairs and check to make sure Jack _meant_ that.

It wasn’t until he reached the landing of his bedroom, stared at the flickering candle-light, that he realised what he’d actually done was run away.

_Coward indeed,_ he sighed. 


	4. Lust, Blood and Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pitch would later come to blame this on many things; almost dying, the blood, the sweet, fresh smell of a certain frost spirit...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 For [Bes](http://fanartdrawer.tumblr.com/), who picked this one as the next Pitch Perspective, and draws such lovely art. :)
> 
> This chapter corresponds directly with the end of chapter 9 in _From the Darkness We Rise_ (Reconnaissance), and the beginning of chapter 10 (The Golden Warrior.)

There weren’t many people on the planet who were genuinely without fear. Pitch had met one before, a fae, a long time ago now. It had been a horrible sensation. Every time his eyes glanced over the space where the fae had been, he was constantly shocked to see a living person there. Even the shadows within him, at the time, had found it perturbing. Creatures without _fear?_

The Nain Rouge was a great deal like that. She didn’t seem to have realised, but she could sneak up on him so easily. Pitch was so used to sensing people by their fears that he almost always ascribed noises unattached to fear to inanimate objects. He doubted he would think even the sound of footsteps were attached to a person, if fear wasn’t present also. This earth had many things that surprised him; people who didn’t feel fear was one. Thankfully, they were truly rare.

He still didn’t know whether the Nain Rouge didn’t feel fear, or if she was using a fear-blocking device. If it was the latter, he could use that against her. If it was the former, she was a strange anomaly, a hungry black vortex, never content with what she had and always prey to her own appetites. Either way, she was a formidable enemy.

Still, Pitch was able to absorb that reality far more calmly than Jack, who was currently turning into a panicked ball of terror. The memory of her attack was too fresh in his mind, and seeing her immediately after they teleported through the darkness caused a sudden kaleidoscope in the back of Pitch’s mind, it seeded his own fears. It raced through him as winds race through a grassland, disturbing every blade.

Jack’s muscles bunched to flee. Pitch acted quickly. He sealed a hand over his mouth, wrapped an arm around his torso, pulled him close. It was – for a split second – too familiar. He had terrorised children like this. He had done terrible things to good people with gestures like this. The _shadows_ had, _he_ had, he couldn’t distinguish between the two.

But Jack’s fear was grounding. They were so distinctly _Jack._ It wasn’t a random child he was stirring to horror, it wasn’t one of his fellow Golden Warriors he was defeating, thousands of years ago. It was Jack Frost, who beamed colours predominantly from the cool end of the spectrum, who – along with his constant, never-ending fears – smelled like snow about to fall and ice crystals prickling the back of the nose.

He was surprised that Jack didn’t fight him. After tensing, briefly, Jack simply stilled, accepted the hand over his mouth, the arm around him. Pitch told himself that he didn’t really care that Jack’s cool, dry lips were against his palm.

_Yes, keep telling yourself that, it’s sure to become convincing eventually._

Pitch took in the putrid, feral environment in a single sweep. An underground carpark, _wonderful_ , though he shouldn’t be one to make fun. He had his own derelict airplane hangar that he’d repurposed some time ago because he’d needed the technology. That had been a different time. Even so, the comparison didn’t quite hold; he’d littered it with far less animal carcasses then the Nain Rouge would have.

They had landed in deep shadow. Pitch wasn’t too concerned about being seen. Even if they were, he could teleport them both immediately; though he would strongly prefer it didn’t get to that point. If Jack could stay still, and quiet, and the Nain Rouge stayed focused on her conversation with Jenny Greenteeth, this would be an easy enough matter.

Reconnaissance hadn’t been his primary responsibility when he’d been a General, he had people he could delegate such tasks to; but that didn’t mean he wasn’t able. Or, it turned out, strangely willing. There was a familiar fervency in Gwyn’s eyes, an ambition that was backed by years of experience. Pitch had recognised it as soon as he’d seen it, Gwyn was a soldier in the truest sense. Everything else came second, and consequently, his dedication and passion felt familiar. It made Pitch want to rise to the challenge. To prove himself.

Knowing that Gwyn had absolutely no connection to the mad Tsar who lived in the moon, helped a _great_ deal. He could convince himself that he wasn’t actually helping the Guardians at all, and that satisfied a very dark streak inside of him that still wanted not a single thing to do with any of them. Spending time with them in a meeting designed to thwart a common enemy was made easier by vividly imagining each and every one of their demises.

All except for – perhaps not so bewilderingly – Jack Frost.

Pitch shifted, his fingers flexed on Jack’s cheek absently. He looked down at the tufts of white hair that he could see clearly, even though they were well and truly cloaked in darkness. Jack’s fear was still high, and could tumble into irrational and animal at any moment. Jack was a feral creature. Oddly foolhardy in some moments, and then strangely terrified the next. It was intriguing. He was the least tame of all the Guardians, yet a single warm hand around his mouth and he stilled as neatly as though he had always had cause to trust Pitch.

Which was irrevocably untrue. Pitch wasn’t entirely sure Jack had reason to trust him _now._

Jack’s fear decreased as he tuned into the Nain Rouge’s conversation with Jenny Greenteeth. Pitch could almost feel the moment that Jack’s concentration folded outward, and the focus caused the fear to fall. His fear diminished and became less muddled and then... _oh._

Pitch closed his eyes, swallowed. A rippling, wavering blue tuned through Pitch’s own body and then spread out to sensation, electrifying his pores, turning his spine into liquid heat. He wanted to clear his throat, but he knew he couldn’t afford to make a sound. He couldn’t shift. He couldn’t do anything except use years of mental training to shove that away and push his own concentration forwards like Jack had. _There’s a time for everything, and this is not one of those times._

‘He’s limited to the water, and so are you, but I’m not. He may have his kelpies and the Glashtyn, but I’ve made a lot of friends here in the Americas, and I’m tired of travelling to Europe every time there’s a stupid fucking meeting. Like, that’s just not how we roll, you know? Besides, I have more of these awesome shadows than he does, than _any_ of us. You know I’d be willing to share more, Jenny. We can create a lot more, you know. I know how to make more.’

_I know how to make more. Damn._

Pitch forced his breathing to even out again, he relaxed his hands where they’d tightened around Jack. The living shadows found it exceedingly difficult to replicate themselves, which is why they frequently searched for a vessel to possess. But it was hard to learn how to create more. It was a dark ability, one that not all could do even once possessed. Pitch’s soul had been so severed during his initiation, that he was left with a great, black rift through it that would never leave. He had – unfortunately – been perfectly able to create Fearlings, Nightmare Men, even the new Nightmares with Sandy’s glowing, golden sand. The living shadows had been positively excited to make their home in him.

That the Nain Rouge could do it too, disturbed him. It was one thing to become a vessel to the living shadows, another thing to replicate them on their behalf. The last thing the planet needed, that _any_ planet needed, was more of that plague.

‘I like carnage,’ the Nain Rouge said, and Pitch didn’t doubt her. _Most_ people liked carnage, if they could control it; he knew enough about humans and the spirit world to know that much, ‘I like going off book. Don’t you?’

‘I just want my lakes back,’ Jenny said. ‘If you can get me my lakes, then-’

‘No one gives two shits about your fucking lakes, but if that’s all you care about, then fine. I’m not a bullshitter and I don’t care about poisoning the waterways to control the moronic humans. They’re all just a bunch of monkeys anyway.’

Pitch rolled his eyes. He disliked the Nain Rouge, which made it uncomfortable to admit that he agreed with her. Humans were, indeed, a muddled swell of primates. No wonder their sticky, shrieking offspring needed protection by a team of bumbling idiots. _Guardians indeed._

He watched as she manipulated magic, only to feel himself tense when she blasted both shadow and frost at a concrete strut.

_Cold and dark._

Pitch clenched his teeth together. It angered him to see it, and he knew it upset Jack, because his fear plummeted _._ In the space where he would normally feel terror, Pitch suspected Jack had found a locus of rage. He couldn’t feel it within as a colour, but the absence of fear was an indicator. If they hadn’t been hiding in a wash of shadows, if they weren’t in terrible danger, Pitch may have actually praised him for it. He loved experiencing other people’s fears, but Jack turned it into an excessive, sprawling art-form. It was refreshing to know that he could feel something else.

And Pitch appreciated well-placed rage. Anger had its place on the battlefield.

Jenny Greenteeth was admiring the ice that the Nain Rouge had created, but Pitch wasn’t paying attention. He watched the Nain Rouge closely. There was something disturbing about the way she caressed the tip of one of the icicles.

‘I’m gonna get me the rest of that,’ the Nain Rouge said, ‘Think what I could do if I had all of it? That boy isn’t going to know what hit him.’

Pitch felt Jack’s terror careen into him. _Great._ Almost immediately it spiralled up like a breeze being sucked into a tornado. One moment that white split of terror, and the next, that dark muddled mess of Jack’s nightmare as it awakened. It had taken almost nothing to prompt it, and Jack was already back in Mora’s grasp, fears turning him mindless. If Pitch didn’t do something, they were both going to betray their presence.

He leaned forward and placed his mouth by Jack’s ear, staring hard at the Nain Rouge, hoping she wouldn’t hear them.

He mouthed Jack’s name. It wasn’t even a whisper, because almost no air was needed to click his tongue around the short syllable, to shape the word. He hoped it would be something, just enough to make Jack realise that they couldn’t afford this now. His fingers barely flexed. He was paused in a moment, Jack’s fears peaking inside of him and turning his senses to murk.

Then, as though a switch had been flipped, the fear simply melted away to something containable. It was as though Jack had responded not just to Pitch’s presence, but to _Pitch._ His eyes widened in surprise when Jack sagged back against him. Terror had turned his body weak but it was more than that, he was letting himself fall back into Pitch, choosing to offer that full body contact. Pitch stared down at Jack’s hair, knowing he should be watching the Nain Rouge, but he couldn’t look away from the creature that had just surrendered himself into Pitch’s care, as though he _trusted_ him.

_Stupid, foolish Jack Frost, whatever are you thinking?_

Pitch had to shift so that he could better support Jack. He no longer needed to seal Jack’s mouth against sound, he didn’t need to hold him in fear that Jack would escape or flee. Instead, he could just...hold him. Pitch stared down in wonder, his breathing came faster. This was...entirely unexpected. Jack’s fear wasn’t strong enough to explain why Jack was still choosing to rest his body against Pitch’s. It was clearly something that Jack wanted. Could Jack have imprinted upon him somehow? Did the night of Mora’s feeding frenzy change things this much between them?

He breathed in and out by Jack’s ear, concentrating. He could still feel Jack’s fear, of course. This close to Jack’s neck, his senses turned the scent of Jack’s fear into something far more delectable. Crude colours transformed into clear strains, a symphony on the spectrum. And Jack’s fears were pine greens and crisp blues, a cool grey that – if Pitch concentrated hard enough – felt like down and soft fabrics and tasted of simple sugars.

His eyes flicked up when he heard the clatter of noise in the distance. A human had overturned a shopping cart, most likely. The Nain Rouge called the shadows to her with an easy hand gesture, and Pitch raised his eyebrows at how quickly they responded. The Nightmare Men didn’t wish to obey just anyone, but clearly there was something about her flavour of darkness they savoured. She was evil even before she’d given them a physical home in her body, and they seemed just as happy to be near her as in her. Perhaps they trusted her more. The living shadows always had to fight whatever was left of Kozmotis Pitchiner; they could never spend too long away from him.

The Nain Rouge and Jenny Greenteeth disappeared, and he closed his eyes and concentrated. Jack’s fears continued to play colour reels in his mind, but they were winding down to something more muted. They crept along his nerves and made them zing with heat.

He slowly removed his hand from Jack’s mouth, told himself that he was going to teleport them both out of there immediately. It wasn’t safe enough to stay, and Jack could easily have his fears leap up into an untenable place if they didn’t leave. But Jack’s hair was a coarse texture against his own. His skin emitted a constant chill. All Pitch could think of was those fears that Jack broadcasted with no thought of the Nain Rouge or his missing powers. Fears that called to Pitch because they were _about_ Pitch. They hummed along his nerves, turned his body into a tuning fork.

_If you do not teleport the both of you out of here in thirty seconds, you will deserve whatever happens next._

The stern reprimand did nothing. The words simply slid off the colours and dropped into the well of his soul.

There was a deep darkness inside of him, and the fears of others could lift him up, lift him back into his own body proper. When they were low-grade, like this, he felt like a tightrope-walker, balanced above the black, perfectly in tune with what kept him afloat.

He heard the sound of Jack licking his lips. Felt the slightest shift of Jack’s face, tilting towards his.

_Pitch, don’t you dare, you brain-damaged, demented, twisted-_

Pitch thrust the voice away and pushed his nose into the back of Jack’s neck, inhaling at his scent, his fears, wanting to see if he could get even more clarity.

he half-hoped that Jack would be the wise one and push him away, or tell him to cut it out. That was probably a sign of just how useless he’d become, that he hoped _Jack_ would be the rational one.

Instead Jack only shifted against him the tiniest bit. Pitch felt not fear, but only the smallest flash of uncertainty. Nothing more than a tiny, mint-green hiccup that tasted of spearmint and fractured into tiny speckles of colour.

‘Uh,’ a long pause as Jack seemed surprised by the reality of his own voice, ‘are you _smelling_ me?’

But Pitch was too busy inhaling again, making sure, making sure that Jack wasn’t terrified or secretly sickened or _any_ of the things he expected. And he _wasn’t._ Jack wasn’t any more scared of Pitch than he was before. And instead of feeling that he’d crossed a boundary, he felt only Jack’s almost standard fears swirling around him. This close they were bizarrely warming, and he swallowed thickly, trying to concentrate, realising that he owed Jack some sort of explanation for his bizarre behaviour. After all, people here didn’t respond to fear the way he did. The vast majority of the Golden Warriors didn’t. He’d met one other who had developed his particular form of synesthesia after the first initiation, and that Soldier had died in his army so long ago he could hardly remember his face.

‘Your _fear,’_ Pitch whispered. Jack shivered against him, and his fear bumped up the smallest amount, and Pitch didn’t even care anymore. Unless Jack broadcasted something that was clearly, _I want out,_ he was going to make the most of this. It had been too long, and Jack was fresh and wintry and perfect, and Pitch was only able to withhold himself so much.

At Jack’s shaky, slow inhale, Pitch splayed his hand possessively over Jack’s ribs. He pressed closer.

‘It really is delicious, Jack,’ Pitch soothed, sliding his cheek against Jack’s cold ear, the barest of touches. ‘All vulnerable and _raw.’_

That fear hiccupped again, and Pitch filed it away, dragging his nose through Jack’s hair, nuzzling until he reached the bare, cool skin at the back of his neck. He wondered at the temperature difference. He loved it, not being nearly as sensitive to temperature extremes as any human, but he wondered how Jack would react if-

He licked all the way from the base of Jack’s neck, to the underside of his jaw-bone, leaving his mouth open to capture that fine-boned curve between his lips. Jack _gasped_ in a silent heave of breath that pressed Jack even closer. And – somehow – Jack’s fears muted further. He was becoming less afraid, and Pitch’s heart started thumping hard because he was not getting hard, he was _not actually_ hard, he was-

_You can’t even blame it on age anymore, can you?_

Jack tilted his head back against Pitch, offered tacit permission, actually sighed out something that sounded so delicious that Pitch wanted to whisk Jack away to his room and not let him go for _months._

Instead, Pitch traced the curve of Jack’s jaw with his tongue. Dragged his lips over Jack’s skin, back and forth, feeling the way it began to warm at the friction. And as he moved, Jack’s fears hummed colours through his head that expanded and contracted, never moving to truly uncomfortable places, staying in a perfect, receptive space that left Pitch wanting to bury his hands up under Jack’s sweatshirt and drag his fingernails down, hungry.

He blinked and exhaled, tried to gain control of himself. He realised, belatedly, that Jack’s burst of terror had pushed him into a far less manageable place. He usually had far better control of himself than this. This was not the time or the place, and worse, how much more complicated would his life become? He was almost certain that if he ever trespassed upon Jack’s person, North would _eviscerate_ him.

He withdrew slowly, removed his hands from Jack’s body, straightened. He was evening out his breathing when something impossible happened. Jack’s body turned unmistakeably towards Pitch, his free hand reached out and back and clutched at Pitch’s hand, squeezed at his fingers.

And he was afraid, of all things, that Pitch would reject _him._

Pitch wanted to purr. He lowered his fingers down sensually between Jack’s, until they were properly clasping hands. It was intimate and Pitch lowered his eyes, leaned forwards and pressed his lips to the side of Jack’s ear. Jack shivered, as Pitch suspected he would.

‘Shouldn’t we be going?’ Pitch whispered, a sound that caused Jack to shudder against him, then shake his head. Jack’s feelings were complicated, his fears were rising again. Still, he had reached out to Pitch, taken his hand. It was an anchor of contact between them.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Jack replied, his fingers shifting restlessly against Pitch’s hand. It wasn’t a move to get away, it was almost as though Jack was testing the sensation of it. Pitch closed his eyes when he felt Jack’s fear of touch awaken, the one that directly mirrored his hope for it. It was a painful thing to experience, a twist in his heart.

Pitch wanted more, but had a moment to wonder what the hell he was thinking, doing this here, and now.

‘Yes,’ Pitch said, ‘what _are_ we doing?’

The Nain Rouge chose that moment to return, talking with Jenny Greenteeth. Pitch ground his teeth together and cursed himself in about three earth languages, followed by what he remembered of the lunar alphabet. Jack tensed when he saw the Nain Rouge again, experienced a pulse of fear that was never reached levels of mindlessness. Jack shifted his stance, readied it. Even Jack was aware of how much danger they were in now.

With Jack’s fear at a level that wouldn’t overwhelm him, Pitch forced his concentration completely upon the Nain Rouge and her conversation with Jenny Greenteeth, and waiting for an opportunity to teleport them both out of there.

But he couldn’t see an opening, they were both close enough that if Pitch teleported, the Nain Rouge would notice. He couldn’t look at her without remembering the agony of her removing the shadows. He would have highly preferred not to be out on reconnaissance in the first place. For a few seconds, he quietly damned whatever instinct had made him want to please Gwyn, because firstly: _Dear god, why?_ And secondly, if that was the kind of person he was turning into, he’d rather just quit while he was ahead.

Jack’s fear spiked hard, and Pitch became aware of the Nightmare Men in his peripheral vision, inching towards them. His eyes widened, and he stilled. The Nightmare Men _knew._ They would have found Jack’s fears delicious. They were vaguely sentient and conducting their own exploration of the understorey carpark. It was only a matter of time now. Pitch realised that they would have to leave, but he wanted to wait. Maybe the Nain Rouge would call them back again, and the Nightmare Men would not be sure until they touched the shadows that enveloped Jack and Pitch.

When Jack squeezed Pitch’s hand hard enough to make his knuckles shift, Pitch moved and looked at the Nightmare Men directly for Jack’s benefit. _I’m well aware of our impending demise, Frost._

Why he waited until the Nain Rouge turned and looked at them, with those flat opaque eyes, he couldn’t say. Perhaps he hoped, right until the very last moment, that the Nightmare Men would give it up, would withdraw, wouldn’t remember the ancient signature of their old master and wonder if it was _him._

Jack’s fear ratcheted but Pitch ignored it, already grabbing Jack closer to teleport. The Nain Rouge was smiling, her hand was moving beneath the uncured, reeking skins she wore.

‘Bitches, that’d be about the last thing you’ll ever do. Don’t mess with the wight from Detroit, I say!’

Pitch’s eyes widened at the sight of the semiautomatic.

_You have got to be kidding me, I am not getting paid enough for this._

She was shooting at them. Jack had created a thick wall of ice, but it wasn’t enough to cover him and Pitch entirely, with his powers being reduced his ice wasn’t responding the way it used to. It left Pitch wide open for the bullet that sank deep into his gut.

He was shouting at himself to teleport even as his fabric stained with immediate, hot warmth. He’d forgotten, he’d forgotten that in this guise, in this form, he could be _mortal._

He summoned the shadows in a wrench that made his gut crawl with pain. He gasped, he just had to keep a hold of Jack through the shadows, that was all.

_This will not go down in history as your finest moment..._

It was impossible to keep a firm grip on the shadows, on Jack. He had to let go as soon as he sensed Kostroma around them, and they both landed hard.

Something was terribly wrong, the bullet had punctured at least one major organ, he was sure. The trajectory had not been in his favour. She was short, she’d shot up at them, the bullet had passed on a thick, sickening diagonal.

Pitch was tumbled into his Kostroma kitchen, rolling until he was on his back, arching at the increase in pain. Things had never been like this, when he’d been the Nightmare King. The living shadows, even as they constantly held him in a state so close to death, still prevented it with a preternatural, assiduous care for their own wellbeing. But like this, it was almost as though he was Kozm-

_DON’T._

Pitch shoved his palm at the bleeding wound, clutched fingers over himself. His jaw ached where he ground it together. If he could master his own reactions to the pain, maybe he could _do_ something. Once, he would have known what to _do._ There was something elusive in the back of his mind. It flickered like candlelight under a high wind.

‘Oh no,’ Jack said, dropping to his side by Pitch and staring. ‘Tell me you weren’t _shot.’_

 ‘I could tell you that,’ Pitch said, strained, ‘But it would be one _whopper_ of a lie.’

‘Shit! You have got to be kidding me,’ Pitch rolled his eyes behind closed lids as Jack pulled his weak arm away and stared at the blood pooling. _I was trying to staunch that, you upstart._

Jack tore at Pitch’s robe and undershirt until he could see the wound itself. Pitch opened his eyes and wondered if Jack was always that pale, or if-

Pitch’s nerves lit up as he felt a fear so old he almost couldn’t recognise it. He sifted through the mess of colours that were Jack’s fears hurriedly, distracted, and found a darkening Pthalos blue shot through with flecks of gold. A veritable Lapis Lazuli of fear. The Rolls Royce of fears.

Jack was babbling about something in the background and all Pitch could see was that glittering rich fear.

He was afraid that Pitch was going to die.

It was a gift. An alien, strange gift. Who feared that _Pitch_ was going to die? No one. No one cared. Even when he had been known well by spirits, no one truly feared his death. No one had wanted him to _stay_ more than they’d wanted anything else.

It was galvanising. Pitch realised that Jack was beginning to panic – _but let’s face it, no one is surprised at that_ – and he touched the blood from his wound and stared at it.

‘The shadows made me stronger,’ Pitch whispered, realising that nothing he was saying would soothe Jack, but finding himself unable to stop. ‘It’s been so, so long since I was injured like this. I barely remember what we used to...’

The golden candlelight in the back of his mind, the one that he created in his room at night, it flickered more brightly. It was a small, uneven droplet of warmth.

He stared at his fingers and couldn’t tell if he was remembering dream or reality.

A long time ago he had been young and trembling and almost possessed by the darkness when his first initiation had almost spelled total failure. And exactly six months later, he had stood at an altar of light and prayed that it would find him worthy. It had been a golden light that felt entirely of wellbeing and warmth, that was almost exactly like having a daughter would feel like, years later. It was home and belonging, affection and the deepest of love. And he had despaired of ever being found worthy of it because the shadows –as everyone had said, both to his face, behind his back – they had pushed and plunged too deep. He had been too arrogant a student, he had not been able to move into the humble place in his meditation that he was supposed to.

The shadows had ripped right in, and he’d been sure the light would never find its way into him. He required too much of it to sooth that great rent within him.

Had that been real?

The golden light in his mind flickered more brightly, and then he felt a ghost of it all along the crevice in his soul.

Jack’s panic swirled around him, so strong that Pitch felt like he stood in the eye of a tornado. Jack’s fear was a storm, unrelenting gale force winds, and Pitch was staring at his hand and had almost forgotten entirely about the pain because there were memories coming back and they hurt worse than the bullet wound, there was a sweetness to them that he didn’t want to savour, because all sweetness that came from the past was grief.

‘...Do you have a first aid kit?’ Jack’s voice, penetrating the haze in his mind.

‘No,’ Pitch said, staring at his fingers. There had been a skill that he had learned, when the light had miraculously rewarded him with its presence. A skill that not all of the Golden Warriors could do. Rumours circulated that the shadows had split so deep, he had ended up a far greater container of golden light than any of the others. And, back then, Kozmotis had laughed it off until he started to learn the various skills that different soldiers could master, and found that he was mastering _all_ of them.

But the Nightmare Men, the Fearlings, the living shadows, hadn’t they pushed that all away? Wasn’t it gone? Light within his body had simply paralysed him while he’d been possessed, how could any of it be left? How could it have stayed, all this time? Dormancy wasn’t a good enough explanation. _How?_

Pitch’s gaze suddenly greyed out and he twitched. These were all questions he could answer later, he was dying, quickly.

His fingers went into spasm, he reached for that flickering candlelight in his mind. This particular skill was the easiest, the one that came without a second thought. He felt a coil of energy inside himself locate a tiny, golden pool of light and encircle it, protectively. He let it flow down to his hand and tried to take a deep breath.

‘This is going to hurt,’ Pitch said to himself, swallowing.

He thrust his fingers into the wound and roared as his own fingernails, his own skin scraped along wounds and through viscera. He could feel the damage of his own organs immediately, there was nothing else for it now, it had to be the light, or it was death.

And once, he wouldn’t have minded. Two months ago, even, he wouldn’t have minded.

But there was a Lapis Lazuli fear inside of him that was familiar and beautiful and made him feel _wanted_ in a way that he never thought he’d feel again. And he wanted to sup on it until whole again, until he could mend whatever had been broken inside of him.

Jack was pulling on his wrist, trying to remove it, and Pitch squeezed his eyes shut and ignored him. He had to focus. He had drawn that small, circle of light down to the inside of his wrist and now what? He couldn’t remember the lessons. He didn’t even know if the light was there, or if it was only an illusion, a gentle ghost of a memory.

He was passing out. His fingers twitched inside of himself, looking for the bullet. _There._

His fingertips slipped around it twice, and every slip was more scraping against the inside of his gut. He didn’t think he’d ever sustained a wound so bad, not even when he’d been Kozmotis. He choked as he grasped the bullet firmly and withdrew his whole hand, dropping the bullet where it wouldn’t affect the healing.

Plunging his hand back a second time – knowing the pain he was inviting, knowing he would likely die looking like a mad-man, a hand inside his own body – was harder.

But he did it.

_Where are you, little light? Do you remember me?_

It was like opening a book he’d forgotten he owned. He found that candlelight flickering golden in the palm of his hand, and simply opened it up. And there, impossibly, the light spilled forth into his own body, awoke within his organs. It felt like distant kindnesses. A small hand grabbing his thumb and pulling him forth to tell _him_ a bedtime story. Mischievous, high-pitched laughter that dissolved into burbling giggles. A woman who accepted his dark hungers and the golden light in his eyes and swelled large with the love they’d shared after that terrible battle. It was, unexpectedly, the feel of white hair in the palm of his hand and pale blue eyes looking up at him, scared but so, so hopeful. It was gold and winter all at once, and the light strengthened and gathered in upon itself and the pain was already dissipating.

It was working. It was _working._

Pitch withdrew his fingers from the wound, letting the light do its work naturally. His organs were knitting together, burst blood vessels were healing, gristle was turning back into articulated flesh.  

Once he was done, his hand withdrew and the light guttered out completely, a candle blown out. He could hardly feel the golden light inside of himself once it was gone, but it had been there, it had been _strong._

‘What...did you do?’ Jack whispered, and Pitch swallowed when cold fingertips pressed against burning, newly knitted skin. He felt oversensitive. And the touch was all the more welcome because it was Jack, leaning over him, still afraid that he’d lose Pitch, that he’d almost lost Pitch. It was an abundant fear, and if Pitch were a better man he’d reassure him, he’d tell him that it was going to be okay now. But he wasn’t a better man, he wanted someone to fear he was going to die. He wanted to bask in it.

‘ _How?’_ Jack stared up at Pitch with wide eyes, and Pitch looked down at his own hand.

‘I’d forgotten,’ Pitch said, there was so much that he’d forgotten. ‘I’d forgotten that I could do that.’

‘You _forgot_ that you could make a light that heals something like a _gunshot wound?’_

‘I haven’t been able to make it for so long. And I was corrupted, it _shouldn’t-’_

There was a heavy rending in his heart. Had the light been there all this time? Could he have done _more_ and-

‘Do you have other powers?’ Jack said, giving voice to an excitement that sickeningly contrasted with what Pitch felt. 

Jack leaned over him, and Pitch forced himself to meet Jack’s eyes, to look up at that open, wondrous expression.

‘Do you have pre...shadow powers? Kozmotis Pitchiner powers?’

‘I...’

Jack’s wonder must have been contagious, because he felt something incredibly opposite to his usual pessimism creep through him. _Could_ he have access to everything else? Did that mean...could he have a weapon against the shadows once more? Something more than a sword that did little more than hold them back?

‘There were other abilities, yes,’ Pitch said, staring at Jack in disbelief. Could it _all_ be available to him once more? _Why?_ How could that even be possible, after all that he’d done? How was the golden light still there? How had it not been chased away by its antithesis? And yet, it _was_ still there, he’d just healed himself from a mortal wound as easily as if he’d been doing it on battlefields unceasingly since he’d earned it.

Jack’s wonder tilted into something generous and cheerful. His lips turned up sweetly, his eyes crinkled on a smile.

And then he leaned forwards all the way and Pitch felt cold lips press against his. He was shocked, couldn’t move. His life had become a cascade of unbelievable events. And Jack’s breathing was gusty and fast against his own, it was shallow and nervous. He was frightened, but he could read the excitement, he felt it himself.

When Jack’s fear became a dark terror of being rejected, Pitch realised that he should do something, should react. He thought he’d pull Jack back and check if he was sure he wanted to do this, if he wasn’t just reacting to the heightened stress; but as he curled fingers around the side of Jack’s head, saw his own blood pressing wet, dark stains onto that pale skin, something hungry and feral roared to life inside of him that demanded satisfaction.

He surged up and inhaled Jack’s fear, clarifying that rich, symphony of colour even as he opened his mouth and licked repeatedly at Jack’s mouth. Tasting his lower lip, the inside of his lower lip, and then in, deliciously _in,_ as Jack’s mouth opened easily for him. He paused briefly in that space, and was rewarded when Jack made a small, broken whimper and _leaned._

In response to that, Pitch shifted Jack’s head with his hands, slanted his lips and slid his tongue in deeper. He curled his tongue along Jack’s, who wrapped that cold muscle along his slick warmth and – Pitch gauged from Jack’s reaction – he liked the temperature difference. He’d worried, for a while, that Jack wouldn’t find warmth appealing. Instead, Jack started trembling. He pushed his tongue up tentatively against Pitch’s, licked back, and Pitch’s lips lifted into a smirk.

Jack started shivering; fine tremors that moved in waves through his body. But there was no increase in his fears, and Pitch felt an old, familiar hunger move through him. Jack was willing, Jack’s face was covered in Pitch’s blood and he was _still_ willing. Pitch caressed his tongue with his own, touched the inside of his cheeks slowly, stroked the underside of his lip where Jack seemed to be particularly sensitive, dragged his tongue against the roof of Jack’s mouth, and was rewarded with Jack’s arm half-buckling where it was being used to brace himself.

Jack simply reached over and pressed his cold hand down on Pitch’s bare chest, and then straddled him. He made a noise of disgust when his knee slipped in Pitch’s blood. Then his fingers were burying into Pitch’s hair and tugging, pulling hard on the thick strands, and Pitch could practically hear the demand in each tug. More, more, _more._

Pitch wanted to devour him. Wanted to soothe away that fractious wanting. He was torn between different hungers. In the end he decided he didn’t have to make a decision, kissing was fine. He had almost _died,_ after all. A little kissing would be fine.

He shifted his hands out of Jack’s hair, watching as white strands clung to drying blood. He stroked Jack’s cheekbones, noting Jack’s sigh. He sucked Jack’s lower lip between his own, biting down experimentally, and Jack rolled his hips unbidden, fluid motion across Pitch’s skin, and oh, _oh,_ Jack was erect. Pitch kissed him hungrily, traced the shell of his ear, smoothed fingers along the line of his jaw, cherished even while a dark, roiling craving to _take_ surged up inside of him. Jack was so eager, so willing.

His hands tightened. His thumbs smoothed at the side of his face, spreading a particularly thick smear of blood. He plunged his tongue into Jack’s mouth and simply took, testing, demanding, seeing how Jack would respond. Jack moaned, his legs tightened around Pitch’s torso, and the hands in his hair pulled unconsciously, asking and approval all at once. His mouth was clumsy, but that articulated something sweet that hummed all the way through Jack’s body. Pitch was undoing him with only kissing, and not even his best, at that. Just...kissing.

_Oh, Jack. What I could do to you..._

Jack broke away and pushed his face to the side, shuddering and catching his breath. Pitch smiled, looked up at the ceiling.

‘Too much for you already?’ he asked.

Jack turned to retort and Pitch dragged him back, biting his lower lip harder, sucking it into his mouth as Jack’s hips rolled again, as he groaned. Pitch chuckled, licked a stripe of heat up against the roof of Jack’s mouth and listened to the stuttering sound that Jack emitted in response, feeling his own breathing become momentarily unsteady in response.

Jack opened his mouth wider, adjusted and then Pitch closed his eyes when he felt a smaller, cold tongue press into his mouth.

_Good, good boy._

He withdrew his tongue, caressing and inviting Jack’s as he went.

Jack hissed as he pressed his tongue into Pitch’s mouth, and Pitch wondered at the temperature difference and how it affected him. Jack seemed particularly sensitive to heat and it gave Pitch all kinds of ideas, each one filthier than the last. He forced himself to focus on Jack’s movements, tongue tracing a pathway similar to that Pitch had made in Jack’s mouth.

He was surprised when Jack traced the shape of his teeth, and when he pushed the tip of his tongue up against a sharp canine, Pitch inhaled sharply. He dragged his hand down Jack’s neck and grabbed his shoulder, his legs shifted. One of his knees drew up. A part of his mind whispered that they should take this upstairs, that – at the very least – he should get them both cleaned up. A darker part wanted to stay on the kitchen floor, to tumble Jack so thoroughly that he was a barely conscious, incoherent mess, striped and smeared with blood.

There was no way that Jack could read Pitch’s mind, no way that he could have known that the dark voice was there, whispering its own persuasive ideas. But Jack’s fear chose that moment to rise to a sharp peak. It was the fear of someone who took stock of a situation and realised it was madness. It was an insecure, shameful, creeping thing.

Pitch shifted back and looked long and measuring at Jack. And Jack stared back, eyebrows furrowed, mouth open and panting, hips seeking against his torso without even realising.

Pitch turned Jack’s head slowly in his hand, watching for resistance. He found none. He leaned up and licked the outside of Jack’s ear, and Jack moaned thickly, and Pitch’s eyes widened when one fear eclipsed all the others.

Jack _wanted._ And Jack was afraid of wanting. The fear rang through Pitch like a bell, and it caused a responding thread of sadness to shift inside of him. This was supposed to be carnal, and enjoyable, and perhaps a little frightening. But... to be afraid of _wanting_.

Pitch hissed and rolled them over, wanted to surround Jack, to show him just how incredible wanting could be when it was indulged.

‘You don’t have to be afraid of this,’ Pitch soothed, squeezing Jack’s shoulder. Jack averted his eyes, looked at the blood. Pitch leaned up again and licked the side of Jack’s face, tasting frost and winter and his own drying blood. Pitch rubbed his fingers over Jack’s scalp, grounding him. And Jack, in response, anchored himself by reaching out and stroking his hand down Pitch’s arm, sighing out a shaky breath.

‘Though,’ Pitch said, looking at the blood on Jack’s face, feeling those fears as small aphrodisiacs accumulating inside of himself, ‘...I would not be at all upset if you were.’

‘You like it,’ Jack said.

‘I _love_ it, but I don’t need it.’

Jack turned back, his eyes searched Pitch’s, and then they dropped to Pitch’s lips, and that was all Pitch needed, really. That was all he needed to know. He pulled Jack back to him and this time he didn’t hold back, he didn’t test the waters. He kissed Jack like he wanted to kiss him, plunging his tongue deep and thrusting repeatedly, letting Jack know – in no uncertain terms – that he wanted them to fuck, and that it could be very much a more intense version of this. He chose the angle at which he kissed Jack’s mouth, he absorbed every single tremble and moan and whimper. He pushed Jack down into the slate, into his own blood, and he felt each of Jack’s responses as a moment of surrender, sweetly won.

Jack clung onto Pitch’s shoulder like he was falling. His legs shifted and spread, and a significant portion of his fear simply melted away, ice cream pooling on a warm day.

Pitch needed more of this. He trailed the back of his hand down Jack’s hoodie and then slipped under to touch cool skin. He dragged fingertips back up over Jack’s ribs and delighted in the texture, tacky with dried blood. He circled Jack’s navel, noting that Jack’s breath hitched when he did that. He trailed fingers up and brushed them with a slow care over Jack’s nipple, and Jack bucked beneath him. He jerked as though he wanted to cry out and catch his breath, but Pitch kept his mouth sealed over Jack’s and he swallowed the hoarse, dazed sound instead.

And when Pitch traced his hand promisingly along the hemline of Jack’s pants, the moan that Jack made was luscious. He trailed his hand back up to Jack’s head, and was surprised when Jack started kicking him. He was raising his leg and slamming his heel down into Pitch’s leg, over and over, making a growl of frustration.

It was cute, it was endearing, but Pitch didn’t tolerate that sort of pushiness. No. If Jack wanted this, he would have it, he would have more than he could stand. But Pitch would choose the pathway, and he would light the road they took.

Pitch fisted his hand in Jack’s hair and pulled his head down hard into the slate, nipping at his lips and tongue until Jack finally stopped kicking him. Pitch almost moaned when he realised that Jack was turned on by those small flares of pain. Jack had arched up against him, ground his erection into Pitch’s skin; small, stifled sounds at the apex of each breath.

Pitch wanted to reward, he wanted to praise, he offered pressure in return and decided that this was it, they were going to do this _here,_ and he could take as much time as he wanted _later._ That Jack could be like this was something he could never have predicted, hadn’t even allowed himself to imagine, and-

A heavy force butted into his ribs and he tumbled sideways, wincing.

He forced himself into an awkward sitting position and blinked at Mora, who was standing over Jack and staring at Pitch with a level of anger and hostility that he found confusing.

_What just happened?_

‘Huh?’ Jack said, and Pitch thought it might have been the most perfect sentence for their situation that he had ever heard.

Jack pushed himself up into a sitting position, but Pitch ignored him, opening his senses up to Mora. And _there,_ her fear, loud and clamouring.

_Oh darling. I am so sorry._

‘The golden light, she doesn’t like it.’

_Oh, Mora. How easy it is to forget what darkness birthed you, when you are so lovely. You must have been terrified._

He wanted to reach out a hand to her, to offer his sincerest apologies, but she glared at him like he was a stranger, she sent feelings of betrayal in intense, sharp waves. She’d _hated_ the golden light. She was threatened, terrified. That she was willing to protect Jack in spite of her fear made Pitch feel almost proud, for a moment.

And _frustrated._

Pitch stood up and Jack followed suit. Jack stared at the blood on his hands, stared at the blood on the floor. One hand came up to touch some of the places where hair had spiked on his head with light fingers.

‘Ugh, I’m a mess,’ Jack groaned, and Pitch smiled.

_Yes, you are._

‘What do you mean she doesn’t like it?’ Jack said, staring at Mora. ‘How did you do that light thing again? Where does it come from?’

Jack’s voice was still delightfully lust-thick. Pitch was pulling himself together, but arousal unpicked some of his efforts. He took a deep breath, another. It occurred to him that the Nain Rouge could already be seeking revenge for the reconnaissance. They really did need to focus. Jack was a three hundred and fifty year old frost spirit who was practically untouched, so his boundless eagerness could be explained.

Pitch hadn’t expected such chemistry. He didn’t think it could all be blamed on the near death experience, either.

‘She’s a Nightmare, Jack,’ Pitch said, straightening his hair by running his hand through it. Coarse strands caught on drying blood and he bared his teeth at it, attempted to wipe it off on his robe. It would need cleaning anyway. ‘She was made by the shadow’s influence on dreamsand. And the golden light, it is primarily used as a...as a weapon. Against the darkness. It wouldn’t destroy her, since her true origins are with the Sandman, but it will hurt her.’

He frowned at Mora, who was still glaring at Pitch, even though she’d stepped back and seemed to understand that no one was in any imminent danger.

‘I am so sorry,’ Pitch said to her.

‘Can she still stay here?’ Jack said, reaching out and touching Mora’s neck. Pitch felt that mild rise in Jack’s fear and took another breath. Jack really didn’t mind fear for fear’s sake. No wonder he’d never been truly afraid of Pitch when he’d been possessed by the shadows.

‘Of course. But I daresay she will not like me very much.’ Pitch lifted one side of his robes and stared down in some disgust at the blood that had seeped into the fabric, the catch that Jack had torn. His undershirt had a bullet wound in it. Pitch felt a rush of malice towards the Nain Rouge. He secretly declared that if he could find a way to destroy her, he would. He would like nothing more than to gouge every single one of those stolen powers out of her.

‘I should get changed,’ Pitch said.

‘Now?’ Jack said. ‘Don’t you mean like...in a little while?’

Just like that, Pitch realised that whatever this was, it wasn’t casual or flippant. It wasn’t embedded in a place of hate for either of them, even though it very well should have been. Jack had been afraid for Pitch’s life. And Pitch was finding it easier and easier to resist his darker urges around Jack, open himself to the other impulsive thoughts that sprang up instead. Kissing him senseless once more, running warm fingers over every inch of his body and waiting to see how long it would take Jack to warm up, shivering like he was running a temperature.

He allowed himself a smile.

‘I should, at the very least, report back to North and Gwyn, and let them know about the Nain Rouge’s lack of loyalty, and that we were spotted by our enemies. And I doubt they’d appreciate any more delays, or the _reasons_ for them.’

‘You’re not going to tell them why we were delayed?’ Jack said.

Pitch glared. What did _either_ of them have to gain from that? He briefly put his mind to how North might react again, and almost placed a pre-emptive hand over his torso. He liked his internal organs where they _were._

‘Right, good,’ Jack said, breathing deeply. He looked dazed, and Pitch smirked. Jack was still very aroused, and when he looked up at Pitch and licked his lips, Pitch’s hands twitched by his sides.

He shouldn’t still be feeling like he needed to drag Jack upstairs. He should be well within the bounds of self-control, at this point. And then Jack’s eyes dropped to Pitch’s lips and he took a deep, hungry breath and Pitch realised that he was not nearly as calm as he’d convinced himself.

‘Where,’ Jack cleared his throat and blinked his gaze away from Pitch’s mouth, ‘where’s the nearest place I can get some replacement clothes?’

Pitch realised the boy didn’t have a convenient wardrobe of different outfits like most people. Goodness knew how long he’d been wearing that current ensemble for. It was heavily stained, especially at Jack’s knees, and – he suspected – his back.

Pitch cast his mind out. It had been a little while since he had travelled through Galich. It could all have changed completely, though he doubted so completely that the locus of population had shifted much. Humans liked to build on top of their old buildings.

 ‘Ah, I do think there’s some shopping establishments to the east, you’ll find them easily enough.’

When Jack licked his lips slowly, Pitch hoped Jack could taste him there. And when Jack licked his lips again, Pitch wanted to capture that tongue in his mouth.

‘So...now we just, what? Get cleaned up? See the other Guardians?’

Pitch didn’t want to. What a chore. Seeing the other Guardians and secretly imagining their demises was not going to be nearly as entertaining as this. Jack obviously agreed, he threw his hands up in the air and scowled.

‘Is that seriously what you _want_ to do?’

_Oh._

The thin line of his control snapped and he stalked forwards, backed Jack roughly up against the kitchen bench and stared down, keeping his breathing as even as possible, feeding on Jack’s momentary rise in fear.

 ‘What I _want_ to do,’ Pitch breathed, ‘is drag you upstairs and have my way until all that frost is fucked out of you.’

Pitch leaned closer and smiled as Jack’s breathing became unsteady with his arousal. Pitch resisted the urge to simply drop a hand down between his legs and _squeeze_ until Jack was panting and leaning back, begging roughly against him. ‘That’s what I _want_ to do.’

Pitch feathered his lips across Jack’s cheeks and then paused there, pressing a long, shallow kiss against that cool skin. He listened to Jack’s lips part and made himself think of the Guardians, of Gwyn, of warning everyone about the Nain Rouge, of doing the right thing. They had time, didn’t they? They had time to explore this _later_ , remembering that helped Pitch to focus.

‘But one of us has to be responsible. And given that the consequences of us not being responsible is the Nain Rouge getting a heads up on our reconnaissance, and me getting _shot,_ I daresay one of us is going to have to exert some willpower over this situation before it spirals out of control. Kudos has to go to that awful brat though, she is a force to be reckoned with. So many wights work with traditional weapons, that guns almost seem crude.’

Pitch stepped back and looked over at the bloodstain, sighing. He’d have to clean that up later. He didn’t have time to do it now. Thankfully, the home was enchanted to repel stains and aging, so at least the dried blood wouldn’t be too much of a problem by the time he got to it.

‘So it is to be responsibility, as I would not like a repeat performance of this,’ Pitch finished. He hoped Jack realised he was only talking about being shot by a semiautomatic. Everything else was fair game.

He forced himself to walk away, to turn his mind to changing his clothes, assembling his thoughts.

‘Responsibility is the _worst,_ ’ Jack muttered, and Pitch nodded fervently as he walked down the hallway, out of sight of Jack.

‘Tell me about it,’ Pitch said. His mouth traced the shape of a smile when he heard Jack’s small huff of amusement in response to that.

For a minute, Pitch resisted the urge to laugh. That had been messy. It had been... _fun._

It would have to happen again.


	5. Alchemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not as though Pitch particularly liked being cooped up in North's Workshop either, and dealing with a fractious, bored spirit... well, Pitch has his own ideas on how to best do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TIMELINE POSITION: Directly mirrors the last half of chapter 12 of [From the Darkness We Rise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/642848/chapters/1166528), ['You Like a Little Darkness, Don't You?'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/642848/chapters/1336748)
> 
> This is pretty much just Porn With Plot. Enjoy. :)

North’s library was surprisingly well-stocked, given that he only ever saw yeti borrowing the books and putting them back. He was sure North read the books in the library too, but Pitch hadn’t seen him there yet. Or, perhaps, it was safer to say that he didn’t go out of his way to stumble across North. He respected the man, _sometimes,_ but he also held rather illicit designs on North’s adopted son; Jack Frost. He was almost certain that if North looked in his eyes for long enough, he’d skim the truth off the surface of them and then Pitch could say goodbye to this strange new life he found himself in, let alone debauching a frost spirit.

Being in the Workshop was made more tolerable by passing the time reading, and so he lost himself in the pages of a book on archaic fairytales, the language dense but absorbing. It was just what he needed. Otherwise he’d start to unravel himself.

Pitch felt Jack nearby, the fractiousness of his fears, he’d been in an unpleasant mood all day. If Pitch didn’t know better, he’d think that Jack needed something to take his mind off what was happening in his life. He largely suspected that his idea of what that something should be, and Jack’s idea, might not synchronise.

Then again...Jack had been surprising him lately.

Jack burst in through his door. The door banged against the door jamb. Pitch didn’t look up. He didn’t think it was wise to indulge this quality of mood.

‘ _So_ bored,’ Jack said, by way of greeting.

Pitch looked up despite himself, could practically feel the restlessness vibrating off of him in jagged waves. Pitch couldn’t even _read_ restlessness the way he could read Jack’s fears, but it was there. It was an energy that demanded to be tamed, and Jack had no idea how much Pitch wanted to do just that. To take him and tame him, to frame the wild creature in his arms and devour whatever Jack would let him swallow down. Something dark twisted up, yearning, inside of him, and Pitch swallowed.

‘Caged in and cooped up?’ Pitch offered, and Jack winced.

‘Yep,’ Jack said, flying further into the room and dragging the crook of his staff along the bed. Pitch watched him, and then shook the darkness and the hunger out of his thoughts. He’d been trying to concentrate. He was on a very interesting tale about the Each Uisge, which must have been written a very long time ago, because it referred to a creature who had no designs on the Unseelie Court itself, but kept to himself and hunted rarely; in this tale, he was stalking a milkmaid. Pitch wanted to at least finish the passage he was on.

‘Just because you have no concentration span doesn’t mean I was put on this planet to entertain you.’

‘Nope, you were put on this planet to turn everything to shadow and darkness.’

Pitch’s fingers tightened around the book, his eyes widened. _Why you aggravating little beast. Not enough that you must be in this mood, but you insist on sharing it. Well._

Pitch closed his book with stiff fingers, and placed the book down with a deceptive gentleness. But Jack wasn’t done.

‘How’s that working out for you?’

The frustrated, curling hunger was back. Jack was pushing, and if he wasn’t careful, Pitch would push back.

‘Do you want to _play,_ Jack? You really want to play this game with _me?’_

Pitch looked over at him in time to see Jack grit his jaw, a muscle jumping along his jawline. He looked miserable. He looked like he wanted to poke the ex-villain – _probably_ ex-villain – and see what would happen. Pitch realised that Jack wouldn’t be able to settle himself on his own. That, like someone pushed too far beyond themselves, Jack didn’t know where the pathway back to himself was. The Workshop wasn’t helping. Already, Jack feared not being in the forests again, already he feared not simply being wild and unchained. It was a remarkably quick time to develop fears on the matter.

‘How do you just sit up here like this, reading?’ Jack said.

Pitch said nothing, Jack wouldn’t have listened anyway. Already, even as Pitch walked purposefully past Jack and closed the heavy door to enclose them both in the room, Jack’s attention was scattering around the room itself. The door closed with a sharp click, muffling the noise of the Workshop immediately. Pitch thought Jack would know what was happening, that he would understand. And for a moment, he was breathless with his own want, a hand on the lock as he clicked it into place so that no one could bother them.

He was struck by his own daring. North could easily enter a locked room. The elves didn’t even seem to use the main doors most of the time. A yeti could beat the door down.

Pitch found that he didn’t quite _care._ After all, he was just as cooped up in this infernal place. Just as caged in.

‘You seem like you could do with a distraction,’ Pitch said.

He walked over to Jack, scented his natural frost thick in the air as Jack insisted on freezing what felt like half of his bedroom with frost spirals, and dug fingers into his shoulder. He turned and pushed Jack into the wall, a part of him delighted and dark and wanting the roughness of clothes torn from skin and biting and drawing blood and _marking_...

Pitch quashed that part of him, and focused himself by looking at the single hand that was pressed against Jack’s sternum. He switched to his index finger, a token pinning against the wall. A symbolic gesture.

Jack stared up at him with those impossibly blue eyes, wide and suddenly understanding. His throat worked when he saw the expression on Pitch’s face, and there was a glimpse of vulnerability there, a small flare of fear that Pitch wanted to nourish, to _grow,_ until Jack’s face would twist and sounds would spill deliciously forth.  

‘Patience is over-rated,’ Pitch purred, voice deeper than usual, ‘and you are in a _mood.’_

He felt the moment Jack focused on him, and only him. He felt the way Jack’s breathing changed as he held his index finger against Jack’s chest. He breathed shallow, a rabbit snared in a trap.

‘What do you want, Jack? A distraction? To not have to _think_ anymore?’

Jack’s eyes flickered to the door in quick realisation. Pitch realised Jack was holding his breath, his chest still beneath his finger. _Ah, there we are, back with the program I see._

He didn’t know what he expected, but the answer he _hoped_ for was the one Jack gave him.

‘Yes,’ Jack managed, on a shaky breath.

There was a small part of Pitch that thought that maybe something different should be done, something safer, something...else. But that part of him was easily squashed down. Pitch had never been about _safer,_ and he wasn’t about to start now. He trailed his finger firmly down the centre of Jack’s sweatshirt, hunger a mess of embers heating inside of him.

When he dragged his fingers under the hem of Jack’s sweatshirt and touched his cold skin, Jack inhaled sharply. And when Pitch stroked his hand up over Jack’s torso, splaying his fingers across that pale, unscarred skin, Jack cried out low and so desperate, that Pitch had to remind himself to be calm, to concentrate, to not just _take._ Jack squirmed against the wall, as though tied by invisible ropes, and that, oh, _that_ was...

Pitch’s fingers curled possessively, reaching up until he could rest his palm back up against Jack’s bare chest. Jack’s sweatshirt was pushed up over his waist, exposing an expanse of skin that Pitch wanted to bite, to lick.

‘Do you know what I’m offering?’ Pitch said.

‘Y-yeah,’ Jack said, ‘I’m not an idiot.’

Pitch smirked.

‘That remains to be seen.’

He pushed his hand harder into Jack’s chest, forcing his back up hard against the wall. And he watched Jack’s uncertainty bloom, expand, even as his fears stayed – at least for now – banked. Jack opened his mouth to say something, but Pitch was more interested in tasting the inside of his mouth. He caught up Jack’s lips with his own, slanted his mouth and thrust his tongue inside, tasting winter and chill, sweetness alongside the bitterness of pine.

Jack sagged, against the wall. Pitch slid his other hand along Jack’s arm and eased Jack’s staff out of his hand, alert for any sudden wash of fear. The trust that Jack showed him instead was disarming, humbling. Pitch licked across Jack’s lips as he rested the staff nearby, where Jack could grasp it if he needed to.

Jack’s eyes were closed, his tongue slicked boldly against Pitch’s, tasting, curling against him with want. Pitch rewarded him, stroking along his tongue with his own, commanding Jack’s attention with his confident approach to sensuality. He reached up and traced Jack’s collarbone, then feathered fingers through the mess that was Jack’s hair. The strands were cool, Pitch closed his fingers around them and pulled Jack’s head so that it was pressed firmly against the wall.

_Ah, Jack, you are not going anywhere._

And Jack, in response to the restraint, abandoned himself to the kiss with a fervour that made Pitch swear to himself that one day there would be ropes, bondage, he wanted to see what Jack would do. He wanted to see the cleverness of knots against his skin, hear the sound the ropes made as Jack shifted his limbs against them, testing their strength.

Pitch brushed his palm against Jack’s nipple, and Jack’s voice cracked high. It sent a shaft of heat through Pitch, he repeated the gesture, then trailed fingertips over his nipple repeatedly, swallowing Jack’s hitched gasps, hungry for the shudders that wracked Jack’s body.

Jack grasped his robes and Pitch was surprised and delighted when Jack pulled him closer and closer still, as though he could disappear into Pitch entirely. Pitch gentled, warmth fluttering alongside the heat in his gut, and tenderness chasing that. He carded his hand through Jack’s hair, ruffling it affectionately. He traced the lines of Jack’s ribs, the musculature beneath the skin that lead down to the jut of his hipbone, before tracing back up to his collarbone, learning the map of Jack’s body even with a barrier of clothing in the way.

Pitch wanted to devour him whole.

An unexpected flare of fear, not his own, and Pitch blinked in confusion as Jack tore his mouth away. Pitch bit wetly, repeatedly at his jawbone, drinking down the shivers, waiting to see what Jack would do. Jack was afraid of getting _caught,_ but...there was something else alongside that fear. Afraid of _liking_ it. Pitch groaned faintly, and licked the line of Jack’s neck.

‘We...can’t do this here, someone will know,’ Jack gasped. ‘Those stupid elves will see us.’

_Oh no, how simply dreadful. Not the terrible_ elves.

Pitch moved his hand out from underneath Jack’s sweatshirt and was surprised at another flare of fear, this one a burst of violet underneath Pitch’s tongue. Jack was afraid – more than anything else – that Pitch was going to stop. It was bemusing, because Pitch had no intention of stopping, and showed Jack exactly that by palming his hip, curving over the top of his thigh through his pants.

Jack groaned, his neck arched. Pitch could feel him trembling beneath his hands. He was so wonderfully responsive, that Pitch could have spent hours, days, weeks, months learning Jack’s reactions to his touch.

‘You like a little danger, don’t you, Jack?’ Pitch said, knowing. Jack gasped an involuntary agreement.

Pitch couldn’t wait any longer, smiling hungrily, and pressed his hand against the outline of Jack’s cock through his pants. Jack moaned, broken before they had barely begun. His whole body shuddered and the motion ended with his head thumping back against the wall, as Pitch trailed his thumb down Jack’s length, curious about how cold he was everywhere, wanting desperately to heat him up and see what happened. Jack’s hips moved forwards, seeking, and Pitch shifted his hand, mouth opening on an inhale to see Jack react like this.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Pitch breathed on his exhale, and increased the pressure, drinking in Jack’s cry and pressing further, knowing it edged along the boundary of pleasure and pain.

He clenched Jack’s hair in his fist and angled his head so he could thrust his tongue into Jack’s mouth, while working his hand into Jack’s pants quickly. He found smooth, taut, cool skin and then the light smattering of Jack’s pubic hair, thickening as he moved towards the base of Jack’s cock. But Pitch teased himself, teased Jack, and didn’t touch just yet, drinking down Jack’s whimper of frustration and the pleading whine that followed. Jack was shivering more often now, waves of sensitivity that made him press his hips into Pitch’s hand.

It was Jack’s naked, raw want that made Pitch change tack from teasing to taking. When Pitch took him in hand, Jack’s whole body jolted, he made a sound thick with need. The heat must have been a sear against his skin, and Pitch wanted to melt him down, wanted to see what lay beneath all of that ice. He began moving his hand with a slow confidence, learning the cold length of him, brushing the edge of his thumb of the head of his cock and amused, because Jack had worried about people seeing them, but he was vocal, clearly too vocal to care about being caught now.

‘I want you to fuck me,’ Jack said, strangled, ‘Come on.’

The words were a ball of heat that went straight to Pitch’s gut and travelled down into his cock, making him harder. But Pitch wasn’t one to move on raw impulse, and he smiled.

‘I have to say, I’m simply charmed that you think you’re calling the shots.’

‘ _Please,’_ Jack whimpered.

_Oh you pretty thing._

Pitch pressed his nose against the scar the Nain Rouge had forced into his neck, lapped at the edges of it with his tongue. It was an old habit, older even than the Nightmare King, when he had liked the reminders of battle and what had been survived, when scars were often proof of a dedication to a greater cause. Jack’s fear flickered in response and Pitch wanted to push, he dearly wanted to, but it was too soon.

‘ _No,’_ Pitch replied to Jack’s begging. ‘You wanted a distraction, and I am providing one.’

Pitch could be merciful, wanted to be with this curious, captivating spirit. He cupped Jack’s cheek, swallowed at the way Jack turned into his palm.

_So trusting._

Fear sprawled in Pitch’s heart and it wasn’t his own. Jack, suddenly aware of loss and pain and losing what he’d gained. Jack who saw the three hundred years of lack, knowing that this one brief stolen moment couldn’t make up for it. The fear was a blow to Pitch’s chest and he exhaled hard, trying to sort through the muddiness of it. When Jack made a sound that was more pain than want, his hand faltered against Jack.

And yet Jack was so used to his own fear that his hips were still moving into Pitch’s hand, he was fretting at Pitch’s robe, trying to find his way to skin and finding Pitch’s undershirt, plucking at it and rubbing at the skin beneath. When fingernails dragged down Pitch’s undershirt in frustration, Pitch groaned in response, partially distracted from the muddiness of Jack’s fear swirling through his chest.

He knew Jack was close, could feel it in the cock that was slick with increasing amounts of precome, could tell in the increasing waves of full body shudders that sometimes ended or started with jerks of sensation. The inside of Jack’s mouth was warming to him, his tongue lukewarm now, the cold breath gusting out of his throat steaming from the change in temperature.

But even though Jack was close, he wasn’t letting himself come. He felt tension build, only to be blocked off by some impulse in Jack’s head, by some...

The muddy fears grew inside of Pitch’s head. They were indigo and clotted; a dark, old mass of horror.

And suddenly insight followed the depth of Jack’s fear down to its conclusion:

_Abandonment. He thinks he’s only going to have this once. Oh, Jack. I can’t discard you. Not now._

‘Jack,’ Pitch whispered, drawing his concentration back to the present. Jack whimpered in response, his trembling became violent, but _still_ he held off.

Pitch’s brow furrowed in frustration and he increased the speed at which he worked Jack over, drawing forth a tension that he knew he could end with just a quick, firm swipe of his thumb over the head of him. He did just that. Jack’s fear disappeared immediately, his mind taken up with the intensity of sensation. He jerked forwards into Pitch’s body, cried out weakly, came as though he hadn’t before, as though coming in Pitch’s hand was a shock to him. And Pitch slowed down, but didn’t stop moving his hand. He wanted Jack to remember this. Wanted this etched in his mind.

Pitch kept him upright when Jack sagged against the wall, and his mouth returned to claim Jack’s slack lips. It was delicious, licking against his sleepy tongue, biting at kiss-swollen lips. He was so hard. He wouldn’t push himself on Jack, was fully prepared to deal with his own arousal himself, knowing that Jack could be easily overwhelmed. But what he wouldn’t give for a hand, or that _mouth..._

Jack kissed back with a sweet laziness, wet and wrung out. It was startlingly intimate, and Pitch wanted more. This had started out as a simple distraction, but dragging his lips against Jack’s, enjoying the exhaustion he’d helped to bring forth, he could see a future – years in the future – where Jack was in his life, where Jack fell asleep in his bed, offering drugging, lazy kisses after a night of fucking. Where Jack would sail into his home through a window no doubt – and could he help it if he imagined Kostroma – and press himself lengthwise into Pitch’s body because he missed Pitch’s touch, his presence.

Pitch lifted his hand up from Jack’s crotch and possessively, hungrily pushed two fingers, slick with Jack’s come, into Jack’s mouth. And Jack moaned with a lust that made it harder to breathe, made the whole room hot.

He felt weak when Jack’s arms moved, uncoordinated but determined down Pitch’s torso. Jack was still sucking on Pitch’s fingers, licking his own come off them with a lack of shame that spoke – profoundly – of Jack’s years of isolation. He hadn’t even had enough time around other people to develop a fear or stigma of it. He tasted with his tongue, licking at Pitch’s lips, his fingers. His eagerness increased as his hands came closer to Pitch’s cock.

Pitch withdrew his fingers and reached down, entwining his hand with one of Jack’s, linking their fingers together. Jack sighed, and Pitch realised that the fears Jack had been plagued by were gone. He was lax and sweet, so sweet. He pressed his head into Pitch’s shoulder like he belonged there, and Pitch swallowed, moved their hands down beneath his undershirt, beneath the thin cotton of his pants, until he could wrap both their hands around his length.

 ‘Cold,’ Pitch gasped absently, and Jack’s whole body jerked in response, he tried to move his hand back, but Pitch shook his head.

‘But it is definitely _not_ a problem,’ Pitch whispered into Jack’s ear. The cold was a brand against his flesh, but the extremes of temperature had never pained him.

Jack’s fingers flexed curiously, brushing against the hot, softer skin. Pitch’s brow pulled together, his lips tightened. He _needed_ more.

He started moving their hands rapidly, and Jack participated, actively shifting his fingers, dragging them and pressing down even in the intimate prison of Pitch’s hand. It was disarming, breathtaking, deliciously intense. His breathing became shallow, unsteady, and Jack was making hungry, absent, encouraging sounds against him; probably wasn’t even aware that he was doing it. His hand sped up and Jack leaned into him, his own fingers tightened.

‘Come on, come on, come _on,’_ Jack said, as though Pitch was jerking him off instead.

Jack’s hand tightened further, demanding, and Pitch shouted hoarsely, arching forwards as he came, pressing Jack into the wall and mind fracturing with the intensity of it. His hand came up and slammed into the wood beside Jack’s head as the rest of his release moved through him in uneven jolts that were surrounded by the smell of winter and a delectable cold. And Jack was gasping with him, not with fear, but with his own hunger, his own appreciation. It was _perfect._

He needed a minute to catch his breath, needed time where he didn’t want to let go of Jack’s hand, where they stared at each other in surprise, and then Pitch looked down even further to see his own grey-olive skin contrasted against the pink-whiteness of Jack’s. Their hands clasped together, Jack’s hand warming in his.

Pitch withdrew his hand reluctantly and stepped back, frowning. He hadn’t expected it to be like that, hadn’t expected his mind to be filled with images of a future that he now desperately wanted _._

And Jack looked shattered and debauched and shocked. His lips were swollen, his hair a mess, there was a smear of saliva by his lips and Pitch couldn’t remember putting it there. His pants were undone, his sweatshirt untidy. Pitch wanted to drag him to bed, wanted to strip him bare and then strip his defences even further. He blinked himself back to awareness and picked a handkerchief out of his drawer, cleaning himself quickly. He handed the clean side to Jack, who did the same.

Already reality was sinking in. Jack’s fears were building. Pitch could see them, a whirl of colour. They built even as Jack tucked himself back into his pants and straightened his sweatshirt. Even as he ran a hand through his hair.

‘Uh,’ Jack said, taking his staff and leaning on it in a way that Pitch found most satisfactory. ‘Well, I guess that was fun.’

Pitch realised he had just brought Jack off, against a wall, in North’s Workshop. Once, these people had been enemies. And in fact, even since the shadows had been removed, he hadn’t particularly _liked_ any of them. But he’d _liked_ that.

‘What are we doing?’ Pitch said, confused. Jack closed his eyes in response.

‘You started it?’

Pitch took a deep breath, feeling unexpectedly shaky. It wasn’t like Jack was any more likely to have answers. That had been more than just chemistry. That had been...

They stared at each other.

Pitch looked away and paced briefly, frustrated with himself. Perhaps he had been the one caged in and cooped up, he was usually better at avoiding acting on his darker impulses than that. But what had started out as a dark hunger had ended up somewhere completely different.

‘I feel like...’ Jack began, and Pitch turned, stopped moving, needed to know what he was going to say. ‘I keep waiting for some voice to tell me that this is _wrong._ I keep...thinking that it wasn’t that long ago, that you were the worst, I mean the _worst._ And I keep waiting for this to stop, and for everything to go back to how it was. But the more time goes by, I just, I just stop caring about all of that. And I keep thinking maybe that’s me, you know, maybe because I’m all about fun and not giving a shit about responsibility and I can’t actually make an intelligent decision to save my life and-’

‘Jack, I say this with all due respect, but that self-perception of yours is _wrong.’_

Jack’s self-deprecation was not casual nor nearly as harmless as it sounded.

‘I can’t stand the fact that I don’t worry about you being evil half so much as I’m scared that you...will get bored of me. Or, be done with this. Because how insane is that? I mean, how _crazy_ is that? Right? That instead of worrying about you know, the implications of you and me and how _they_ are going to react, I’m worried about you changing your mind.’

Pitch wanted to laugh. The idea of that happening _now_ was unimaginable.

‘Didn’t I say I wasn’t going anywhere?’

‘Didn’t you also say I probably wasn’t going to believe you?’ Jack said, on a weak laugh. ‘I mean, I don’t just mess things up, Pitch. _I_ am messed up.’

‘Then we have a club of two,’ Pitch said with a faint smile.

‘No one else is going to understand,’ Jack said, laughing. Pitch felt the quick uptick in Jack’s fears, knew that Jack was worried about how they would react, and Pitch didn’t particularly want to imagine it himself. North would slaughter him. _Slaughter_ him. ‘They’re going to think that you brainwashed me, or that I fell for some trick, or something. And they’re going to figure it out. So if you want to, if you want an out, then I think you should take it-’

Pitch groaned. This mess was hard enough to examine, without this on top of it. Pitch narrowed his eyes, frowned.

 ‘You are so _afraid_ of that,’ Pitch said, walking towards Jack. ‘Why?’

‘People leave,’ Jack said, voice small, as Pitch reached him.

Jack couldn’t maintain eye contact, and Pitch watched him closely, trying to match what Jack was saying to the colours he felt swirling through his mind’s eye, the feel of Jack’s fears inside of him.

 

‘I mean, people meet me, and then they like me, or they think I’m cute, or...something, and then we fuck, and then they generally leave. Some of them tell me I’m too cold for their tastes, as well, which is kind of understandable, but that’s a whole other kettle of...’

_Oh._ Pitch stared. _Oh, I’m a moron of the highest order. Of course. But...it_ can’t _be true. It would make perfect sense, but he’s been on this earth for centuries. That-_

‘Have you ever had a relationship with someone?’ Pitch said, incredulous.

 ‘Your mind-reading fear-thing can’t pick that up?’ Jack said, frowning. Pitch shook his head slowly and Jack shrugged. ‘Okay, then, well I guess it depends on your definition of a relationship.’

_That’s an answer if ever I’ve heard one._

‘You haven’t, have you?’ Pitch wanted to be wrong. Wanted Jack to suddenly remember a failed relationship from two hundred years ago, _something_ that would mean that Pitch wouldn’t be his first relationship, his first intimate, prolonged contact with someone. Pitch didn’t want that responsibility thrust upon him, but...

...he wanted Jack.

 ‘I said, I guess it depends on your definition of-’

‘Then you haven’t,’ Pitch ground out, angrily. ‘Because my definition is clearly different to yours. I happen to believe that a one night stand is nothing more than a one night stand. Maybe I’ve been doing it wrong all this time. Please, regale me with tales of all of these meaningful, special one night stands that you’ve had that have lead you to feel so secure.’

‘Actually a lot were during the day,’ Jack said, voice even smaller than before.

Pitch sighed, frustrated with himself, and unexpectedly saddened. The rollercoaster of emotions he went through in Jack’s presence was a unique experience. But...the idea that this comely frost spirit had never entered into a relationship with anyone, at any time, would take some getting used to. It made the reality of his loneliness all the more jarring. He watched Jack, thoughtful, unhappy. He should have not rushed into things in the way that he had.  

‘Is it a problem?’ Jack said.

Pitch reached out, couldn’t stop himself from touching Jack, from offering some sort of reassurance to the both of them. Jack shivered, responsive even now, even while frightened, as Pitch trailed his palm down Jack’s arm, rubbing his forearm gently.

 ‘I had mistakenly assumed that your fear was not so grounded in reality, but no, it doesn’t have to be a problem. I can keep reminding you, if you like. I am not going anywhere.’

But how much reminding would Jack need? Even as Jack smiled to himself, hearing the phrase, Pitch knew how fragile this was. How tenuous Jack’s trust, and how easily it could disappear from moment to moment. Pitch squeezed Jack’s forearm, and sighed.

 ‘Come join me with my reading, if you’re so bored,’ Pitch said, straightening.

He extended his hand and Jack took it with a relaxation that Pitch didn’t share. He was disturbed, he wanted to lose himself in reading again, he wanted Jack by his side, he wanted a document signed in triplicate that North wouldn’t bury sabres in his face while he slept once he found out about what had happened in his Workshop.

Pitch settled into the comfortable armchair – he could do with something very like this in Kostroma – and Jack hopped onto the armrest. Pitch leaned forwards, took his book up and found his place amongst the aged pages. Jack leaned over his shoulder and looked at the writing.

‘Fairytales?’ Jack said, and Pitch nodded with some surprise. He wondered when and how Jack had learned to read different languages. What had inspired him, and how he’d motivated himself to do it. Perhaps, in his search for answers to why no one could see him, he forced himself to learn more than he would have otherwise, just to try to understand his purpose.

Pitch realised, soberly, that he was upset. He wasn’t supposed to be anyone’s first relationship. A single carnal encounter, maybe. But a _relationship?_

Pitch frowned.

‘Research,’ he said, distracting himself. ‘If the golden light can’t hurt Augus, then something else can.’

Something else... Pitch had the vaguest notion that he’d once known what that was. But every time he turned his mind to the memory of the time he’d spent with the waterhorse, his brain offered him very little except blank space, and a fear and pain that wasn’t his own. He was hoping the fairytales would trigger a memory or ancient knowledge on how to defeat the King of the Unseelie Court.

Jack yawned next to him, and it was followed by a languid stretch. Jack’s forehead pushed sleepily into Pitch’s shoulder. Pitch smiled to himself.

‘Are you falling asleep?’ Pitch said, as Jack relaxed deeply against him, unselfconscious and trusting. Jack nodded as Pitch turned the page he’d finished.

Pitch leaned his head towards Jack’s, felt tufts of hair brushing against and snagging up in strands of his own. He settled more deeply into the armchair and closed his eyes, contemplative. He knew, already, that he was committed to whatever it was he had with Jack. It didn’t matter what his doubts were, it didn’t matter how unsuitable he was to being in Jack’s life, in this way. He wanted more, Jack wanted more, and – leaning against each other like this – it was possible to imagine a future where they could find that together.


	6. Tarantism

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a whole bunch of prompts today from a meme going around Tumblr, and two people requested Jack/Pitch - Tarantism (The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing) and I ended up writing 1500 words of canon SALverse. As it's a Pitch Perspective, it's going here. So, ah, I know it's been like a million years, but I hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> It's set in the future. :)

It was one of those days.

The words didn’t quite capture the heaviness of it. He didn’t have these days so often anymore. They tended to come on the backs of dreams about his old world, his old life – how many old lives did he have now? The one as the Nightmare King. The one as Pitch. The one as Kozmotis. The one as Kozmotis pre-Seraphina. The one as Kozmotis post-Seraphina.

This time, he’d dreamt about the celebrations after the successful initiation ceremony into becoming a golden warrior. It had been a rocky affair, he’d gone deeper into the darkness than the others and his supervisor had known it and carefully said nothing after seeing the look in Pitch’s eyes. So Pitch had tried to embrace the vivacity of his colleagues and peers, drinking as vigorously as they, and yet in the depths of him a darkness whispered quietly.

Sometimes he showed children the abyss that terrified him just as much.

But the worst dreams were the ones of the better times, as though his mind was trying to ask him a question:

_If you had known, if you had seen the foreshadowing laid out before you like that in a book, could you have saved her?_

Pitch rubbed at his forehead, thinking of the dances they’d shared; with his daughter, with his colleagues. They’d had time for ceremony and seriousness, but time for delight and dancing also. There were gardens and resplendent entertainment halls, feasts with flavours he’d not been able to replicate in the entire expanse of time he’d spent on the lonely little planet he now occupied.

A gust of cool wind blew in through the sliding doors of his home in Kostroma, and snow flurries followed Jack as he whooshed inside, tumbling onto the giant bed and laughing, holding his staff above his head to prevent the majority of the snow falling on top of him.

Pitch complained about cold, wet blankets. Pitch was quite certain that _most_ people would, for all Jack pouted about it.

Then again, when Jack pouted, he was entirely kissable, so…

Jack flopped onto his stomach, his head rested on his hands, his elbows crooked. He looked at Pitch and opened his mouth to say something inanely cheerful no doubt, and then his eyebrows furrowed and one of his hands dropped.

‘One of those days, huh?’ Jack said.

‘Appears so,’ Pitch said, absently stroking the suede covered journal he’d been writing in.

Indulging the lunar alphabet on these sorts of days was a recipe for sadness. But he couldn’t stop himself. He worked the old words out of his body, as though he could leave them on the page and exorcise the grief from himself.

Most days the wound was so much more healed over. But every now and then that bubble of wellness cracked apart. There were some losses that could never be undone. He would never be someone who hadn’t been sundered through. Never whole.

_Glorious, simply wonderful, indulging this mood of yours._

‘You talked in your sleep,’ Jack said, tilting his head at Pitch and pursing his lips. ‘You sounded like a prince. Or at least, what I think a prince would sound like. The real ones. Not the singer.’

Pitch rolled his eyes, allowed a smile. ‘A prince?’

‘Oh man, yeah, you were all like, ‘may I have this dance’ and ‘shall we stop for refreshments’ and well, I dunno. It sounded pretty nice actually. You danced? What kind of dancing?’

‘Hip hop,’ Pitch said with a straight face.

Jack burrowed his face into the blankets when he laughed, and Pitch found his heart tugged in the fey spirit’s direction. A corner of his lips lifted into a smile. He found himself standing, carefully placing the journal down on the small table, dusting off his robes – not that they needed it. Today he wore one covered in white gold patterning at the edges. Since living with Jack, he’d unearthed a great deal more robes – ones he’d never realised he’d had – and the shadows and darkness had fallen away from all of them.

‘Would you like me to show you?’ Pitch said, holding out his hand.

_Come, help me chase away these dreams, my dear spirit of freedom._

Jack lifted his head off the bed abruptly, his eyes wide.

‘Seriously?’ Jack said.

‘Do you know anything of dancing?’

‘Uh,’ Jack said, pushing off from the bed and leaving his staff in the centre of it. He hovered in the air, looking at the hand that Pitch was holding gracefully outwards, extended in invitation. ‘Well. Movies and TV and stuff, right? I’ve seen _The Sound of Music._ I’ve seen it a lot now, because you _make_ me watch it.’

‘I don’t _make_ you watch it,’ Pitch said stubbornly. ‘North was the one who _made_ you watch it. I only…encouraged.’

‘I’d already seen it!’ Jack said, laughing. ‘It’s not even a Christmas movie! I don’t know what you’re doing to him, I swear.’

‘So, you take my hand,’ Pitch said, smiling in that way that always made Jack shiver, no matter what. Unless of course, Jack was also having ‘one of those days.’ Though they were rare for Jack now, thankfully. So Jack saw the smile, and predictably, he shivered, then swallowed, and then Pitch thought about changing his mind and just pinning Jack to the bed instead.

_First things first._

‘Can I stay in the air?’ Jack said. ‘You’re kinda tall.’

‘That’s lazy,’ Pitch said. ‘But…since I don’t want you to step on my feet so many times I can no longer feel them, it will also expedite things.’

‘Super rude,’ Jack muttered, sliding his hand into Pitch’s. His lips pressed together when Pitch’s other hand slipped around his waist, low, just above his hips. ‘This feels like the beginning to something else.’

‘That’s rather the point with some kinds of dancing,’ Pitch said, leaning close enough to Jack that he could feel the cold of his breath when his mouth opened. ‘Didn’t you know?’

‘Well, I mean, I know about movies like _Dirty Dancing_ and stuff.’

‘This is a different kind of seduction,’ Pitch murmured, tightening his fingers around Jack’s waist, even as he kept his grip of Jack’s hand light and careful. ‘Place your other hand on my shoulder, or upper arm. Whatever feels comfortable.’

‘Can do,’ Jack said, his touch light, a bit of nervous frost spidering out in curlicues across Pitch’s robe.

What kind of synchrony in their universe that the waltz could evolve on earth, just as it had evolved elsewhere? Pitch knew the beat of the human one-two-three-one-two-three as well as anyone who had been born native to the planet. He knew how to keep his shoulders straight and bend his knees just so on the ‘one’ beat before rising up on the next, to give the illusion of floating through the air.

Jack was too stiff at first, and then he giggled, and then he clutched tightly at Pitch’s arm and hand and looked down between them, watching Pitch’s feet.

Then, when Pitch was about to dip him, Jack looked up and bit his lip and burst out with:

‘I want to try it. On my feet. Properly. Am I too short?’

‘No,’ Pitch said, smiling at him. He lowered Jack easily, and Jack looked down again, his tongue between his teeth before he finally looked up at Pitch and nodded.

‘Go slow?’ Jack said.

‘I enjoy going slow with you,’ Pitch said, beaming.

‘Come _on,’_ Jack said, laughing, as Pitch carefully introduced Jack to the steps of a basic waltz.

Jack tried so hard to learn, the old non-existent attention span roped into obedience with that distant centre of resolve, no longer ruling him, but still present when he _really_ wanted to learn something. Pitch was surprised and pleased that Jack seemed so dedicated to something that he’d never really brought up before.

And then they were dancing, and Jack was matching his steps, looking up with brighter eyes than usual and an expression of wonder on his face and frost crawling all over Pitch’s hand and robe.

‘I’m going to dip you now,’ Pitch said, doing just that as Jack’s eyes widened and he was tilted down towards the ground, breath escaping him in a silent gasp.

When he straightened back up again, Jack was clinging to him.

‘Okay,’ Jack said, laughing under his breath, ‘I get it. I get it. Seductive. Hell yeah. Ah…I’d really like to keep dancing but I just…could we just quickly like – you know – _do stuff?’_

‘You mean _fuck_ ,’ Pitch said, laying each word down exactly.

‘Yes please,’ Jack said, breathless, lifting off the ground and pressing his body into Pitch’s, cold lips against Pitch’s mouth, turning warm as the lingering touches continued. ‘And then can we dance some more?’

‘It would be my pleasure,’ Pitch said, smiling against his mouth.

‘See? A total prince,’ Jack said, smiling back. ‘My prince.’

‘Yes,’ Pitch agreed, his hand splayed across the small of Jack’s back. ‘Yours.’

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Eyes of Gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/869282) by [Ending_To_Begin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ending_To_Begin/pseuds/Ending_To_Begin)
  * [One Step Closer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5846512) by [apatheticpunkhippie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatheticpunkhippie/pseuds/apatheticpunkhippie)




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